We were joined by one of our early adopters of the innovative Dimensions CM 14 release, Carmelette Benson of Health Care Service Corporation. The VUG was treated to an exceptional upgrade story that engaged the free Upgrade Lab to advance their planning and readiness, and worked collaboratively with Serena Support to achieve a smooth, successful and timely upgrade implementation. Key takeaways included:

Working closely with Serena Support to lay out the process of implementing a successful upgrade

Leveraging the Upgrade Lab to identify any data anomalies and gather insight into how long it would take to complete

Collaborating with Serena Support and the Upgrade Lab results to secure a successful and confident upgrade in only a few hours

Serena Support was engaged through the planning, execution and implementation and as a result the HCSC team ran into almost zero issues, achieving an upgrade implementation that is now servicing 500 to 600 active users of Dimensions CM.

With Dimensions CM 14, HCSC are now benefiting from a modernized developer centric approach, increasing their development efficiency. The new enhanced merge tool is speeding their ability to accommodate and streamline parallel development, and they are now champing at the bit to implement the visual change graph and collaborative peer review.

Moving forward, HCSC have installed Serena Business Manager (SBM) as a platform for connecting processes across change, quality and release management, and are expanding their use of Dimensions CM 14 for all software applications.

Peter Raymond, Principal Product Architect provided an excellent overview of the Dimensions CM Bridge technology, extending our ability to integrate with broader client tools and then demonstrating use of NetBeans IDE, TortoiseSVN, and SVN command line with Dimensions CM.

Don Irvine was excited to share some Dimensions CM Roadmap highlights – including a number of significant improvements focused on the user and developer experience, a new plug-in architecture to support additional tools such as Unit test and static analysis with results incorporated into the visual change graph, and files decorated for peer review. Customer participation and feedback was positive, and members are invited to join us in the Special Interest Group that was announced during the VUG.

In 3 weeks we will host Serena xChange15 and Don highlighted a number of track sessions that will both excite and compel users to attend the conference and engage in direct product feedback and validation. We hope to see many of you there, and if not, then at the next quarterly Dimensions CM VUG in May.

In the event you missed the VUG, or would like to reference it in the future, you are invited to view the February Dimensions CM VUG recording.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2015/02/serena-dimensions-cm-virtual-user-group/feed/0xChange 2015: just four weeks to gohttp://www.serena.com/blog/2015/02/xchange-2015-just-four-weeks-to-go/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=xchange-2015-just-four-weeks-to-go
http://www.serena.com/blog/2015/02/xchange-2015-just-four-weeks-to-go/#commentsThu, 19 Feb 2015 17:39:32 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=4897Well! We’re all set to go! We have a great agenda, a fantastic lineup of speakers and some fun activities planned. If you haven’t registered yet there is still time – you can register here.

Let’s take a quick tour of the highlights …

Over 70 in depth technical sessions – nearly half delivered by customer practitioners just like you

Major new product announcements you will only hear at xChange

Incredible end-to-end demo of modern software development infrastructure – “The Mother of all Demos”

Important new thought leadership about The Secure SDLC – new whitepaper published at xChange

Of course we’ll be celebrating too:

The 2015 xTravaganza will be a look back and celebration commemorating the 30th birthdays of PVCS, ChangeMan ZMF and Dimensions CM with special guest appearances of some of the thought leaders who created these technologies

The 2015 Innovation Awards (aka “The Douggies”) presented by Serena’s President and CEO Greg Hughes, will it be you?

Award for Innovation Excellence to the customer who has deployed a Serena Solution in a novel way

Award for Value Creation to the customer who has made the most dramatic savings for their organization

Award for Use Satisfaction to the customer who has changed the organization most impact-fully

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2015/02/xchange-2015-just-four-weeks-to-go/feed/0The Key To Unlocking High Performance IThttp://www.serena.com/blog/2015/01/the-key-to-unlocking-high-performance-it/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-key-to-unlocking-high-performance-it
http://www.serena.com/blog/2015/01/the-key-to-unlocking-high-performance-it/#commentsFri, 16 Jan 2015 00:43:14 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=4869We are still not there yet are we. The idea that IT is an “always on” utility, or better yet, a competitive advantage for the business.

Come join me as we invite Jez Humble, co-author of Continuous Delivery and Lean Enterprise, and VP at @chef, to the DevOps Drive-in to discuss what is a high performing IT organization, how do you become one, and what are the obstacles in your way to unlock the secrets of high performance IT.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2015/01/the-key-to-unlocking-high-performance-it/feed/0How Long Does it Take to Implement a Change?http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/12/how-long-does-it-take-to-implement-a-change/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=how-long-does-it-take-to-implement-a-change
http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/12/how-long-does-it-take-to-implement-a-change/#commentsTue, 16 Dec 2014 18:15:59 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=4861Once the developer checks in a change, how long does it take your organization to deliver it to the customer? The path to production can take many turns, have many dips, and fall short in terms of quality and expectations. IT organizations struggle with major process and toolchain gaps between develop, build, deploy, and release. Come join us at the December Serena DevOps Drive-in as Julian Fish, Director of Products, demonstrates how to integrate your DevOps toolchain and automate your deployment pipeline using Serena Deployment Automation.
]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/12/how-long-does-it-take-to-implement-a-change/feed/0Seven Habits of Highly Effective DevOps from Forresterhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2014/12/seven-habits-of-highly-effective-devops-from-forrester/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=seven-habits-of-highly-effective-devops-from-forrester
http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/12/seven-habits-of-highly-effective-devops-from-forrester/#commentsWed, 03 Dec 2014 19:45:10 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=4849How do you become a high performance IT organization? Earlier in the year we had Glenn O’Donnell of Forrester on our Serena DevOps Drive-in webcast to answer this question. Glenn outlined the fact that we are in the beginning of an IT industrial revolution: IT is currently too slow, has poor quality and customers don’t trust IT. This current state has given rise to the DevOps movement, and Forrester has highlighted seven habits that are commonly found in the most dominant technology innovators in the world.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/12/seven-habits-of-highly-effective-devops-from-forrester/feed/0xChange: time is running outhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2014/12/xchange-time-is-running-out/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=xchange-time-is-running-out
http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/12/xchange-time-is-running-out/#commentsMon, 01 Dec 2014 23:23:22 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=4843If you are planning on coming to xChange I want to remind you that the early bird pricing expires on December 31st. Right now you can save $200 off the registration fee.

If you haven’t looked at the agenda yet I’d recommend hopping over to the xChange website so you can the amazing list of topics and keynotes we have planned for you.

With the release of ChangeMan ZMF 8.1 a new era of software development becomes possible for the mainframe. With over 400 customer requested ideas implemented and groundbreaking innovations in cross-platform SDLC support, this release makes managing software development, from idea to deployment more streamlined, more automated and more reliable than ever.

Leading enterprises are under pressure to deliver innovation rapidly to satisfy their customers, while maintaining high quality and integrity, and reducing cost and risk. Agility and accelerated application delivery is required but companies struggle to deliver mainframe changes at the pace that the business demands. New Serena ChangeMan ZMF v8 capabilities enable mainframe application teams to deliver faster and at lower cost without compromising the enterprise scalability or security.

Here are some highlights:

Release and Deploy Support For Eclipse and Windows Clients

Serena ChangeMan ZMF 8.1 provides development, release and deployment support for both Eclipse and Windows environments. Developers, release managers and business stakeholders can manage mainframe deployments and releases from a distributed client. Development teams can develop code and manage changes as they transition across environments.

Support for High Level Language Customization Exits (HLLX)

Customer-specific business rules can be implemented in COBOL, REXX or any other high-level language. Pre- and post-exits are implemented at strategic points within the ChangeMan ZMF workflow and are implemented and executed across both mainframe and distributed clients.

“We tested the HLLX feature and were extremely impressed at the flexibility in which we could modify the behavior of ChangeMan ZMF. This allows us to leverage the development process as a clear competitive differentiator.”

Global Application Administration Update

Simplified administration means setup and deployment of ChangeMan ZMF instances can be done in minutes ensuring dev and test teams always have the right resources when they need them

Global Application Administration Update

Over 450 additional feature enhancements improving performance, security, usability, development and administration are included

As the most innovative release in more than a decade ChangeMan 8.1 sets the standard that all others can only aspire to. This is the ideal solution for mainframe teams that are under pressure to deliver high-quality, valuable software in an efficient, fast and reliable manner.

ChangeMan ZMF 8.1 highlights the continued investment that Serena Software is making in this strategic product used by hundreds of the world’s most important companies.

And there is more just around the corner. Watch out for next month’s release of ChangeMan 8.1 Client-Pack.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/12/changeman-zmf-8-1-mainframe-dev-just-got-way-cooler/feed/0Serena Continues to “Double Down” on the Mainframe with ChangeMan ZMF v8http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/11/serena-continues-to-double-down-on-the-mainframe-with-changeman-zmf-v8/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=serena-continues-to-double-down-on-the-mainframe-with-changeman-zmf-v8
http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/11/serena-continues-to-double-down-on-the-mainframe-with-changeman-zmf-v8/#commentsMon, 17 Nov 2014 16:05:28 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=4827Today Serena is announcing ChangeMan ZMF v8, a major update to our flagship mainframe SCCM solution. Why the continued large investment by Serena in the mainframe? Read on…

Continuous Delivery for the Enterprise has been the subject of much focus and discussion in the industry and in my recent blog posts. Enterprises need to deliver new features in a fast, efficient and reliable manner. However, many don’t realize that delivering a new feature involves more than just updating a website or front-end app. There’s a lot happening on the backend, frequently involving software updates to the mainframe. Enterprise apps are like icebergs: there is a lot more ice below the surface…and the big part at the bottom of the enterprise app iceberg is often a mainframe.

Just to give some context, COBOL is still the language behind over 70% of the world’s business transactions, and there are 1.5 million CICS transactions being executed every second, which is nearly 40 times higher than the 40,000 Google searches per sec.

And while the mainframe continues to be so critical, there’s a skills shortage as many mainframe programmers, administrators and business analysts are nearing retirement. Agility and accelerated application delivery is required across all platforms, but frequently companies struggle to deliver mainframe changes at the pace that the business demands.

ChangeMan ZMF v8 provides innovative release and deployment management, unmatched development support and superior scalability and extendibility. We are honored to be able to deliver this release to the best customers in the world!

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/11/serena-continues-to-double-down-on-the-mainframe-with-changeman-zmf-v8/feed/0Continuous Testing: Is it Soup Yet? Join Our Live Webcast to Find Outhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2014/11/continuous-testing-is-it-soup-yet-join-our-live-webcast-to-find-out/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=continuous-testing-is-it-soup-yet-join-our-live-webcast-to-find-out
http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/11/continuous-testing-is-it-soup-yet-join-our-live-webcast-to-find-out/#commentsTue, 11 Nov 2014 22:30:15 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=4818How does a developer know when they are done?. How does a business know that their new application or feature does what the customer wants it to do? By testing. Testing is a cross functional activity that involves the whole team and should be done continuously from the beginning of the project. It serves as the gauntlet that a committed change has to run and pass in order to be considered worthy for release. While testing is a major key ingredient of Continuous Delivery and the deployment pipeline, it seems to get less DevOps airplay than culture, continuous integration and deployment automation. It’s time to change that.

We have invited our newest partner, Soasta, the leader in continuous testing technology, to talk to this subject on our next live DevOps Drive-in webcast on November 20th. Join us to hear how continuous testing helps accelerate application delivery.

-Mark

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/11/continuous-testing-is-it-soup-yet-join-our-live-webcast-to-find-out/feed/0“Show Your Automated Deployment” $1,000 Contesthttp://www.serena.com/blog/2014/11/show-your-automated-deployment-1000-contest/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=show-your-automated-deployment-1000-contest
http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/11/show-your-automated-deployment-1000-contest/#commentsFri, 07 Nov 2014 00:32:43 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=4804We are looking for new and innovative uses of Serena Deployment Automation Community Edition and are announcing a new contest with a chance for a $1,000 Amazon gift card!

If you haven’t downloaded Community Edition yet, visit this link to get started with the free version that allows deployments to 5 end points.

Then, post a video of your automated deployment to the SDA community to enter. Our panel of judges will choose one user to win the $1,000 grand prize, as well as two more to win $250 honorable mentions prizes.

Don’t delay, as videos need to be submitted by November 21.

Here are the details:

Record a video of Community Edition in action. Provide a voice-over narration in English to explain what you are showing.

For best consideration, make your video 2-10 minutes in length and include a description of what you are deploying, how you are doing it and what the process was like before automation.

Watch this example video recorded by our own Darryl Bowler for a good example of comparing before and after automation.

Make your video available online (say, at YouTube) and post a link to it on the SDA Community. Register for the community to post, if you’re not already a member.

Need a screen and audio recorder? We use Jing, which is free and records 5 minute videos, but you can find a comprehensive list on Wikipedia.

Do all of this in the next three weeks, as the deadline to enter is November 21.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/11/show-your-automated-deployment-1000-contest/feed/0Growing Momentum and Successful Adoption of Serena Dimensions CM 14http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/10/growing-momentum-and-successful-adoption-of-serena-dimensions-cm-14/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=growing-momentum-and-successful-adoption-of-serena-dimensions-cm-14
http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/10/growing-momentum-and-successful-adoption-of-serena-dimensions-cm-14/#commentsTue, 21 Oct 2014 22:39:23 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=4789On June 10th I announced Serena Dimensions CM 14 – the best ever, and I am pleased to report that we have now secured a number of successful early adopters, many of whom are live and in production, and attracted a significant number of accounts that are now actively pursuing or planning their implementations and upgrades.

We have seen broad and successful adoption across all regions including Europe, North America, LATAM and Asia Pacific. Reports from our partners, our own Professional Services team and our customers who took advantage of the Free Upgrade Lab, have been overwhelmingly positive. If you are at all hesitating over the upgrade, rest assured that many customers have successfully completed the transition and are now enjoying the many innovations and significant performance improvements delivered in Dimensions CM 14.

Of course, for those who participated in the CM 14 Preview and Beta program, we continue to offer Serena’s greatest gratitude, for you have helped us achieve not only the most innovative release, but the most reviewed, validated and tested. Existing members will shortly hear of more Preview program and Special Interest Group events, as the innovation is set to continue, and we’d love to have you come join us and participate as we collaboratively drive and deliver on our roadmap vision. If you are an existing customer or well qualified prospect and wish to join the Preview Program, simply register here.

We continue to offer the Free Upgrade Lab, which is proving to be an incredibly popular service, and when you receive your full and comprehensive Upgrade Lab report, you will know we are not leaving a stone untouched or a customer left behind in ensuring your successful upgrade and implementation.

We also offer a Ramp Up program, for those customers that wish to take advantage of a free health check, and additional assistance in the planning and execution of a successful upgrade with the very best resources in Serena, including access to the Dimensions R&D team and on-line training videos.

Whether you are on a back release or prior release, we have you covered, and I invite you to contact your local account manager or Serena Support, or simply drop me a line, and we will be very pleased to advise you on the most appropriate service that will result in a smooth and successful Dimensions CM 14 upgrade and implementation.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/10/growing-momentum-and-successful-adoption-of-serena-dimensions-cm-14/feed/0Mainframe User Group Recap: What’s New in ChangeMan ZMF 8.1http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/10/whats-new-in-changeman-zmf-8-1/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=whats-new-in-changeman-zmf-8-1
http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/10/whats-new-in-changeman-zmf-8-1/#commentsFri, 17 Oct 2014 16:57:34 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=4780In our October 2014 Mainframe Virtual User Group (VUG), we highlighted the latest features in the ChangeMan ZMF 8.1 release, set to go GA at the end of the month. In addition to Kevin Parker and I presenting
at this VUG, we were joined by Greg Hughes, President and CEO of Serena Software and some of the lead developers of ChangeMan ZMF, and the Client Pack to demonstrate some of the functionality in his forthcoming release.

You may recall several months back, we did a VUG where the team gave us an early preview of what was coming in 8.1. Since then you have probably seen at least one or two demos of the HLLX facility. Since we are now about two weeks away from the availability of ZMF 8.1, the team wanted to give everyone a refreshed view of what is soon to come.

In teeing up the demonstrations of this functionality given by the developers on the call, we quickly gave a high level overview of some of the features that were not being demonstrated during this VUG. To name just a few:

HLLX – The new facility in ChangeMan ZMF 8.1 that allows ZMF administrators to create and manage their customizations in a new way, as spoken of in an earlier blog post

Enhancements to the Installation Calendar, including extending its capacity from one year to five years as well as the ability to inherit the value of previous days when adding a new day to the calendar (prior to this enhancement, new days always took the default of MAX 000)

The ability to upgrade from one release of ZMF to the next on an application-by-application bases

Mass update of single application parm(s) across all or many applications

A good deal of enhancements around logging and SSV file management

A new XML service to display the skeleton release variables.

Major improvements to ERO performance and usability

Security enhancements such as RACF PassTicket support and pass-phrase support for ZMF Web Services

Audit capabilities extended to pending scratch/rename requests

Storage constraint relief

Well over 400 change requests have gone into ChangeMan ZMF 8.1. There simply wouldn’t be enough time to demo even the items noted above, so we decided to focus on a few of the enhancements coming your way.

The ball was passed to David Jackson who manages the mainframe development teams. David gave us an overview of the fresh new ISPF interface, a dive into ZMF’s use of the )INEXIT and how attribute definitions are externalized. He also stepped us through portions of the dialog, split and scroll capabilities and use of CUA constructs.

The presentation was then handed over to Peter Webb, one of the lead developers for ChangeMan ZMF who demonstrated much of the new SORT capabilities and the consistency and usability enhancements that have gone into the ISPF UI.

Mark Turrell, another lead developer on the ZMF team took the ball and demonstrated two key enhancements in 8.1 that were both highly requested among the community; the first was the ability to delete a load component even if the ILOD record has been deleted. This request had fourteen requestors. Mark also stepped us through the capability to add user data to non-source components, also as part of 8.1.

John Skelton, Principal Developer of the Client Pack and frequent presenter at VUGs and xChange took us through a number of enhancements. The first was the ability to substitute field names such as Work Request and Department Number. He went on to demonstrate how these substitutions were not only visible in ISPF but also Eclipse. John then gave us a great demo of how the Client Pack participates with HLLX. Lastly John stepped us all through how the Client Pack now works with ERO.

As always there were questions from the VUG participants. Some were asked and answered during the VUG, others came to us after the VUG.
The questions (and answers):

Q: Is the panel exit (referenced in David’s ISPF presentation) used specifically for attributes, or does it provide other functionality?A: The IBM exit point initiated by the )INEXIT statement is solely for Serena usage. Currently the exit is limited to simply handling the inclusion of the *INCLUDE CMNPATTR copybook member.

We have to cater for ZDD and ZMF4ECL clients and as such, the exit is not intended to allow a ZMF end user be able to modify an ISPF panel by including any other member name.
Before we can consider opening up additional usage of the ISPF exit, we need to see use cases based on feedback whilst also considering the impact on our other client interfaces. We would hope that HLLX would be a preferable means of adopting business logic into a panel as it is seamless across all clients. For example when we provided the means to override the “Work Request ID” and “Department” fields we had to ensure that we catered for the other clients as John Skelton demo’d in the Eclipse client.

Q: ­Will ChangeMan support IBM’s new functionality for PDSEs that allows multiple generations of members to be saved and retrieved?­A: This feature is part of PDSE V2. ChangeMan ZMF supports PDSE V2 and while it does not explicitly exploit this particular function (in the same way that IEBCOPY and ISPF only processes the current version of a member), ChangeMan ZMF has been specifically tested against PDSE V2 without issues. Furthermore, while ZMF does not exploit this feature, it is capable of generating datasets in that fashion: e.g. DSNAME=(LIBRARY,2), MAXGENS=10

Q: ­This question relates to the Release Set Up activities on ERO­. Are the Release set up activities possible via Client Pack?A: Not Currently. Release setup is considered an administrative function. This may be considered as an ENH for a future release.

Q: Question about the LIBTYPE display ordering. I believe this was shown via GLOBAL Admin. Is it also customizable via LOCAL Admin, as well?A: This was shown via application (local) administration library types. This affects the display of application library types within application administration panels and application library types within developer functions, such as stage and checkout. There is also ordering within global library types that affects the display of global library types within global administration panels and also global library types within application administration panels. Note that within application administration, there are panels displaying the application library types and also panels that display the global library types for selection to be copied to the application. Thus you can set default ordering in global library types used both for displaying global library types and for inheritance to application library types. Like other settings inherited from global to application library types, the default display order can then be changed at the application level so that different applications have different values.

Q: A question about these additional user variables for non-Like-SRC components. Once this is enabled (via Global? Or and/or also via Local?), is it immediately effective for all libtypes? Or is it perhaps controllable by individual libtype? Also, is this new data access feature effective retroactively for components already present within pre-existing packages “in motion?” Or is it only going to be accessible/available “going forward?”A: The global option (only) when turned on or off, affects all libtypes for all packages with immediate effect. So if you restage a component in a pre-existing package in motion after changing the global setting, it will get the new options (or not) stored as part of the stage process.
There are currently no plans to make it more granular (application, libtypes) but is technically possible to do so if requested.

Q: What, if any plans are there presently for expanding the number of “user defined” data/panel fields?A: As a result of feedback from one of our beta testers , we were asked to also provide the means to ‘repurpose’ a number of the requester fields and to additionally provide the means to allow the user to provide their own descriptive text to the right of the input field. This has been completed as part of ZMF 8.1.1 under ENH252126.

In case you missed this VUG, or would like to reference it in the future, here is the link.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/10/whats-new-in-changeman-zmf-8-1/feed/0Configuration Management at the Crossroads? Mark Burgess of CFEngine live!http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/10/configuration-management-at-the-crossroads-mark-burgess-of-cfengine-live/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=configuration-management-at-the-crossroads-mark-burgess-of-cfengine-live
http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/10/configuration-management-at-the-crossroads-mark-burgess-of-cfengine-live/#commentsTue, 14 Oct 2014 17:00:21 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=4764The world of configuration management is no longer just about servers in the data center. It is rapidly expanding and supporting other environments including cloud, mobile devices, embedded devices, BYOD and devices in the car and home. All these environments need to be configured as a broader system tying into a business platform or application. Everything is growing and becoming increasingly pervasive, decentralized, complex and dynamic.

Where are we headed with Configuration Management? Are we at a crossroads?

Mark Burgess the CTO, Founder and original author of CFEngine joins us on the October 30th DevOps Drive-in to answer these questions and discuss the future of configuration management.

Please join me for this compelling live webcast and bring your questions about confirmation management, DevOps, continuous delivery and more!

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/10/configuration-management-at-the-crossroads-mark-burgess-of-cfengine-live/feed/0Serena’s Global User Conference, xChange15: March in D.C.http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/10/serenas-global-user-conference-xchange15-march-in-d-c/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=serenas-global-user-conference-xchange15-march-in-d-c
http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/10/serenas-global-user-conference-xchange15-march-in-d-c/#commentsMon, 13 Oct 2014 22:46:49 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=4771We are gearing up for our next global user conference, xChange15, to be held March 22-25 in Washington D.C. Like our past xChange conferences, this one is going to be all about helping our customers get the most value our of their Serena software investments, with presentations and workshops featuring the best thought leaders, technical experts, fellow customers and technology partners.

In three jam-packed days, we provide over 60 technical sessions on the products you are using today, like SBM, Dimensions CM and RM, Serena Release Manager, ChangeMan ZMF and more. We are working on the full agenda right now and will publish it as soon as available.

Discounted registration is available through the end of this calendar year, so take a look at your training and conference budget in 2014 and decide to spend it on attending xChange. You won’t be disappointed!

We are offering a selection of one-day intensive pre-conference training sessions on Sunday, March 22 for the amazing low add-on price of $199. Space is limited to 20 participants, so register now for xChange15 and add one of these important training courses during your registration.

We have a set of hotel rooms at the Ritz Carlton Tysons Corner set aside for xChange15 attendees at a preferred rate on a first-come, first-served basis. Links to hotel registration are included in the registration process.

Finally, we offered a discounted rate to customers joining us from outside North America, as we know travel costs for international attendees can be high. Please contact your Serena sales, services or support representative for additional information, or just send an email to xchange@serena.com.

I look forward to seeing you in Washington D.C. in March!

-Kevin

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/10/serenas-global-user-conference-xchange15-march-in-d-c/feed/0Partnering for Continuous Delivery Toolchain Successhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2014/10/partnering-for-continuous-delivery-toolchain-success/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=partnering-for-continuous-delivery-toolchain-success
http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/10/partnering-for-continuous-delivery-toolchain-success/#commentsThu, 09 Oct 2014 16:32:57 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=4760If you didn’t see the news yesterday, our friends at CloudBees, the enterprise Jenkins company, announced further strengthening of their partner program to delivery continuous delivery success to software development and IT organizations around the world.

It was a pleasure to be quoted in the release, because I firmly believe that continuous delivery isn’t about any one particular process you automate or tool you buy. Instead, to achieve continuous delivery speed and quality, you need to seamlessly connect your processes and tools into a DevOps toolchain that eliminates bottlenecks, manual steps and errors.

Of course, I believe that our deployment automation and release management solutions are critical components in that toolchain, but those products need to plug-in easily and work collaboratively with adjacent tools such as SCCM (e.g., Dimensions CM, PVCS, Subversion, Git), continuous integration (e.g., Jenkins) and infrastructure configuration management (e.g., CFEngine, Puppet, Chef).

If you are near Chicago, San Francisco or Washington DC in the next month, I invite you to come to one of the continuous delivery summits or Jenkins user conferences we are sponsoring with CloudBees to learn more about this subject and see these products working together for DevOps success. I also invite you to attend our next DevOps drive-in webcast on October 30th with Mark Burgess, founder of CFEngine, on the future of configuration management.

-Ali

“We are excited to partner with CloudBees to deliver world-class Continuous Delivery automation for the world’s largest and most important companies,” said Ali Kheirolomoom, senior vice president of R&D, Serena Software. “Serena provides application deployment automation and release process management solutions that seamlessly integrate with Jenkins-powered CloudBees products, whether in the cloud or on-premise, to enable our mutual customers to speed up application delivery, increase software quality and, most importantly, better respond to the demanding needs of their customers.”

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/10/partnering-for-continuous-delivery-toolchain-success/feed/0Solve the High Cost of Database Deploymentshttp://www.serena.com/blog/2014/09/solve-the-high-cost-of-database-deployments/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=solve-the-high-cost-of-database-deployments
http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/09/solve-the-high-cost-of-database-deployments/#commentsFri, 19 Sep 2014 23:29:55 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=4738Deploying software in today’s enterprise environments is an extremely expensive and inefficient process. The cost in terms of resources, time and revenue lost is actually astounding. I was on the phone with a large insurance company recently that was struggling with high costs and time to market issues with their main retail application. Their DBAs were spending over 50% of their time manually deploying 3 releases a day.

Do you have high cost, highly skilled team members deploying software? It shouldn’t be that hard.

You can automate your database deployments with Serena and Datical as discussed in September’s DevOps Drive-in webcast.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/09/solve-the-high-cost-of-database-deployments/feed/0Free One-Day Continuous Delivery Summits Coming to a City Near Youhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2014/09/free-one-day-continuous-delivery-summits-coming-to-a-city-near-you/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=free-one-day-continuous-delivery-summits-coming-to-a-city-near-you
http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/09/free-one-day-continuous-delivery-summits-coming-to-a-city-near-you/#commentsThu, 18 Sep 2014 18:41:58 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=4726Continuous Delivery continues to be one of the most effective approaches to improving application delivery and achieving DevOps improvement.

Serena has partnered with CloudBees, the enterprise Jenkins company, to bring you live full-day summits with industry experts on Continuous Delivery. The first four summits have been sold out and well reviewed.

Please join us at one of the upcoming summits in a city near you:

Chicago – October 15th

San Francisco – October 22nd

Washington DC – November 19th

Please register early, as the limited number of seats will fill up quickly. There’s no cost to attend.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/09/free-one-day-continuous-delivery-summits-coming-to-a-city-near-you/feed/0Patrick Debois, Godfather of DevOps, on the First 5 Yearshttp://www.serena.com/blog/2014/09/patrick-debois-godfather-of-devops-on-the-first-5-years/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=patrick-debois-godfather-of-devops-on-the-first-5-years
http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/09/patrick-debois-godfather-of-devops-on-the-first-5-years/#commentsThu, 18 Sep 2014 17:35:33 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=4719Patrick Debois coined the term “DevOps” as part of the first DevOpsDays nearly 5 years ago. Now DevOps is a major movement in the smallest start-ups and the largest enterprises.

Patrick and I spoke on a recent Serena DevOps Drive-In webcast about the first five years of the DevOps movement and what lies ahead in the next five years. I think you’ll find the edited recording of the event really interesting.

Tuesday

Like most jobs in life, preparation is the key to success. After getting to know the Serena Deployment Automation technology by working with the free version (download from the Serena website) for a few hours (see yesterday’s post) I decided it was time to try for real.

My application was a Library Management System I developed a while ago for a public library in the United Kingdom. Like most developers I like to have something familiar to play with when I am learning a new technology.

So I started by defining my application to Serena Deployment Automation (SDA). The truth is that the help system (which is very helpful) suggested I defined the Components first. Partly because I like to try and test things to their limits and partly because I like to do the unexpected.

Create the Application

To start I clicked on Management, then Application and then Create New Application. I gave the application a name and a description and I was done. Easy. But was it too easy?

Once my application was created it dropped me into the Environment definition page. I was expecting this because I had been through the tutorials and samples when I first downloaded the Appliance. Here is where we define the target environments for the application. Every application lives somewhere. The environments are definitions of the locations you will be deploying to for development, testing and production. Each environment can comprise of one or more targets.

I clicked on Add Environment and the drop down menu invited me to pick from DEV, INT or QA. Well they didn’t suit me so I realized I needed to create my own Environments.

Create the Environments

So now my plan was off track and that made this whole thing even more fun.

I clicked on Environments and there were DEV, INT and QA. So I clicked on Create Environment and all I had to do was to give the Environment a name and description. Next I was shown the Environment Details page. It had no details of course because it had just been created.

The Application was yet to be associated with the Environment and it had no resources. It was then it dawned on me. My application comprises of three parts. The database, running all the time, the programs running when invoked and the scripts that run once each time the application is refreshed. These resources, these components could go to any of the servers in my environment. I needed to define these components so I could tell SDA which components go where.

So I should have followed the instructions after all and defined the Components first. Good to know the help system has my best interests at heart. Even though I went down the wrong path all the entries I made are going to be used when we get down to the deployment itself.

Create the Components

So I now click on Components and the Create Component button.

Here I am invited, as usual, to give my Components a name and Description and, in addition, details of their location and the repository type. SDA supports almost 20 different types of repository including PVCS, Dimensions and Subversion.

Summary

My foundation is in place. Now I have to fill out a little more of the details and decide how the deployment should go. This whole process took no more than 5 minutes. In that time I had set up the Environments, the Application and the Components.

What I really want to do is deploy my Application and its Components through the sequence of Environments I have set up. To do that we need to define the process we want the deployment to follow. And that is what we’ll do tomorrow.

The story so far

Since that post I have been working with the Appliance learning how to automate deployments. For about half an hour each day, for the past week, I have been pressing buttons, dragging and dropping and generally putting the technology through its paces partly to improve my understanding of how it all works but mostly to see just how much better automation is than the manual processes I used to use. I have to say I’m impressed! Let me take you on my journey and share with you how I became an automation-maven in just a week. In order to make this digestible I am going to write it in 5 separate postings.

Today, we have naming of parts* (Monday)

Serena Deployment Automation divides the aspects of deployment into 3 units of deployment:

Applications – this is the entirety of what you are deploying. It might consist of scripts, executables, images, configurations, in fact anything you need to upgrade your application from its current state to its upgraded state.

In my case my Application is the Llareggub (a fictional place in Wales) Public Library

Components – these are the distinct collections of items, often from specific repositories Dimensions CM, PVCS/VM, VSS, Subversion etc), that are going to be deployed. Each collection will be of similar types of artifacts that need the same deployment process.

In my case I had three collections of components: database schema changes in the /SQL folder, new programs in the /CBL folder and set up scripts in the /BMS folder.

Environments – are where the deployments are going to to go from and to. These can be single or multiple deployment targets such as a single server or virtualized shopfront like Amazon.

In my case I just followed the paradigm that was in use in the Appliance already of DEV, INT and QA, development, integration test and QA testing.

Each of these has associated attributes, the most important are:

Processes – these are associated with Applications and Components. The component processes allow you to create activities that are different for different classes of components and to create different process for those components. For example a set of database DDL needs very different treatment to a bunch of DLL’s. But how we apply DDL to a MS/SQL server is very different to how we apply it to an IBM/UDB server. Imagine these as micro-processes, as your toolkit for deploying this kind of component. Application processes are macro processes made up of a collection of the micro-, the component-processes. Here you can create a deployment process that initially loads the application on to a new server or a process for putting out a security patch.

In my case I had processes for deploying the application from DEV to INT and from INT to QA comprising of the stop-backup-apply-ddl-restart of the database, backup-deploy of the code and backup-deploy-execute of the scripts

Properties – describe the nature of the Applications, Components and Environments. They specify, for example, the source repository type, the identity of a deployment target, the approvers and many other attributes.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/09/the-science-in-the-appliance-naming-of-parts/feed/0Automating Application and Database Deployments – Live Webcasthttp://www.serena.com/blog/2014/09/automating-application-and-database-deployments-live-webcast/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=automating-application-and-database-deployments-live-webcast
http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/09/automating-application-and-database-deployments-live-webcast/#commentsMon, 08 Sep 2014 17:15:16 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=4697Our next DevOps Drive-In webcast features application deployment automation and database deployment automation working together. Register here for the September 18th event. Read on for some background on the topic.

With the explosion in the use of Agile development practices and the subsequent adoption of DevOps centric deployment practices, many organizations are investigating the ways in which automation technologies can provide value. Automating your deployment processes has the potential to increase deployment velocity, remove the potential for human error, reduce deployment risk and bring reliability and repeatability to your deployments.

Whilst automating application deployments will certainly allow organizations to make significant improvements in all of the areas listed above, there are additional areas of complexity that can be addressed using complimentary automation tools. One significant benefit of Serena’s deployment automation tool is its ability to work seamlessly with a number of other tools and provide a deployment-centric or even a full DevOps toolchain. The value of an integrated toolchain extends beyond the realm of application deployments: it includes build management, test management, application performance monitoring and a number of other domains.

With a powerful deployment automation solution, application deployments and even application rollbacks are easy to define and implement. However, correlating any associated database changes (and rollback) can provide some pretty large headaches, even to the most experienced automation users. Extend this scenario to environments where complex database deployments occur in conjunction with application deployments, and you’re walking into a minefield, wearing a blindfold after being spun around 50 times.

The ability to perform application and database deployments, track schema changes and apply agile processes to databases in a repeatable and user friendly manner can provide a huge amount of value. In our next episode of the DevOps Drive-In webinar series, we will address the issues and solutions to this complexity with database deployment expert Robert Reeves of Datical. Register here for the September 18th event.

Datical brings a model based approach to database deployments that compliments the market leading deployment automation capabilities of Serena Deployment Automation with additional knowledge of database schema changes. Robert will discuss deployment challenges, successful methods to overcome said challenges and provide a live demonstration of application and database deployments working seamlessly together. Please join us!

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/09/automating-application-and-database-deployments-live-webcast/feed/0Deployed in the Time it Takes to Chill Champagnehttp://www.serena.com/blog/2014/09/deployed-in-the-time-it-takes-to-chill-champagne/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=deployed-in-the-time-it-takes-to-chill-champagne
http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/09/deployed-in-the-time-it-takes-to-chill-champagne/#commentsFri, 05 Sep 2014 00:15:04 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=4684“Drinking our own champagne” is how we approach technology here at Serena. If we have a our own tool that supports part of the application development lifecycle we use it for our own development efforts. In fact the Serena development teams deploy the beta versions of our solutions straight into their production environments because they want exploit the cool-new-stuff just as much as you do!

When I sat down today to start writing about automated deployment in modern enterprises I thought I’d follow the Serena mantra and “drink our own champagne” too. So I jumped on the serena.com website and downloaded the completely free and completely pre-configured “appliance” and the virtual environment that runs it.

All appliance – no science

This is something truly amazing. The appliance is a fully installed, configured and ready to go. All you have to do is press the “deploy” button. It runs on top of Virtual Box which is a virtualized environment that runs on most enterprise platforms. Now I will tell you that the download of the appliance took almost 20 minutes as it is over 5GB but the Virtual Box download only took a few seconds.

While it was downloading I read through the easy to follow documentation that walks through deploying an application to Tomcat, one that deploys a database update and a deployment to WebLogic. I also took a look at the cool videos so I could get a sense of what was ahead. By the time I’d watched the last one the downloads were done.

Installation of Virtual Box took a couple of minutes and was easy as I just took all the defaults. Importing the Appliance also took a couple of minutes.

It takes a community

My environment is Windows 8.1 Pro on a Surface II computer. The moment I started the Appliance I got an error message.

So I popped over to the Serena Deployment Automation Community forum where my exact problem (Symptom: Appliance won’t start: Reason: Pop up blocker software on Windows 8.1) was described. I followed the advice and voilà!

Moments later I found myself looking at a logon screen for Serena Deployment Automation.

Mr. Impatient

Like most geeks I want to click buttons and links more than I want to read documentation or follow a script.

So I clicked on Application and got a list of applications to be deployed. Then I clicked on Tomcat Sample Application and got a list of deployment areas. Next to DEV it asked me to Request Process.Deploy Application was already selected so I just hit SUBMIT.

Seconds later I get the deployment results screen appear and I can see the steps executing.

That was fast

So I installed and configured enterprise class Deployment Automation technology. I executed my very first Automated Deployment. All in under an hour.

The software is free forever. It is unrestricted in functionality and supported by the community of users. This free version limited to a generous 5 deployment end-points and I can buy more for under $1,500. I get a tee-shirt when I do.

How cool is that?

Follow the recipe

So now I am going to settle down and follow each of the guided tours and see what other miracles of technology await my discovery.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/09/deployed-in-the-time-it-takes-to-chill-champagne/feed/0xChange Call for Speakers Now Openhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2014/09/xchange-call-for-presentations-now-open/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=xchange-call-for-presentations-now-open
http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/09/xchange-call-for-presentations-now-open/#commentsWed, 03 Sep 2014 23:18:18 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=4675As the overall owner of the content for our next xChange global user conference, I always remember that the heart of xChange15 is the breakout session content but the soul of xChange is the array of fantastic customer presentations.

I am delighted to announce that, as of today, you can learn more about the xChange Call for Speakers on the xChange website and then submit your ideas for presentations online here. Selected speakers receive complimentary registration to the conference.

This year we are looking for topics in the following five categories:

Explore: your perspective and insight on industry trends and hot topics that could leverage current or future Serena solutions.

Develop: how you have used Serena solutions to define and develop software applications, support development teams and deliver quality deliverables. Example products included here are Dimensions CM, Dimensions RM, PVCS and SBM.

Deploy: how you have used Serena solutions to automate the release and deployment of applications. Example products included here are Serena Release Manager, Serena Deployment Automation, Dimensions CM and SBM.

Automate: how you have used Serena’s SBM platform to improve the efficiency & effectiveness of your IT and line-of-business processes.

Mainframe: your opportunity to show how you use Serena Mainframe solutions in your business.

With the exception of the Explore track, submissions for each track should address three main themes:

What was the innovation you were able to achieve using the technology?

How did this change the processes and practices of the team?

How do you measure the improvement you made?

To help you focus the content on the limited time you have, ask yourself this question:

“What is the ONE thing I want the attendees to be able to do after my presentation that will the biggest impact on their use of the solution?”

Sessions last for 50 minutes and are usually 40 minutes of presentation and 10 minutes of questions and answers.

Where possible, we encourage you to include a real time demonstration of the points you are making, and we will have wireless internet access available.

When you submit your idea, make your description as interesting as possible. Remember, we want the very best of the very best for the conference.

If you are selected to speak, we will give you a free pass to xChange2015 (worth $1,895). You will be notified whether or not your proposal has been accepted.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/09/xchange-call-for-presentations-now-open/feed/0SYS1.PROCLIB protected FREE for 90-dayshttp://www.serena.com/blog/2014/08/sys1-proclib-protected-free-for-90-days/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=sys1-proclib-protected-free-for-90-days
http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/08/sys1-proclib-protected-free-for-90-days/#commentsThu, 28 Aug 2014 13:30:02 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=4669System’s programmers on the mainframe have a pretty difficult time these days. More and more complexity, rampant growth of z/Linux, Websphere and RD&T boxes. Draconian constraints, compliance and governance mandates to be applied. All with fewer and fewer resources. It is a common problem.

Serena is here to help. Our ChangeMan SSM technology is designed to be the SysProg’s best friend and unswerving ally.

Sitting quietly in the background monitoring system datasets and members like the APF authorized libraries, the LINKLIST datasets, console commands and any critical application datasets, ChangeMan SSM will send out an alert to the SysProg when members of these datasets are changed in real-time. That message can be delivered to TSO or to email. Not only does ChangeMan SSM know who, how and when the change occured it also know what changed and provides a critical audit trail. If that change was accidental (or malicious) the SysProg can ask ChangeMan SSM to restore the change instantly.

Want to try it free for yourself? Go to the Serena website and download your free trial today or contact me and I’ll be happy to show you just how it works.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/08/sys1-proclib-protected-free-for-90-days/feed/0ChangeMan 8.1 sneak peek: ERO turbo chargehttp://www.serena.com/blog/2014/08/changeman-8-1-sneak-peek-ero-turbo-charge/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=changeman-8-1-sneak-peek-ero-turbo-charge
http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/08/changeman-8-1-sneak-peek-ero-turbo-charge/#commentsWed, 27 Aug 2014 16:29:38 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=4635This is the first installment of an occasional series of posts in the run up to the launch of ChangeMan 8.1 later this year. As part of the routine pre-launch activities I’ll be chatting to the development team to learn about the cool features that have been added to this latest version.

ChangeMan ZMF is used by some of the largest mainframe development shops in the world. It is typical for these organizations to have hundreds of thousands of components managed and tens of thousands of components in motion. Keeping track of that requires the kind of sophistication and advanced capabilities that can only be found in ChangeMan ZMF.

Many of the largest customers in the world have the most complex and sophisticated release management problems and they make use of the Enterprise Release Option (ERO) of ChangeMan ZMF. Even though the mainframe has blisteringly fast performance, displaying a list of the 4,000 to 10,000 members of a release (typical for several ERO customers) could take a while.

In ChangeMan ZMF 8.1 the ERO process of selecting, searching and sorting lists has had a major overhaul. Where a list of a few thousand components might have taken several minutes in the past this has been reduced to mere seconds. This has been achieved through a number of thoughtful innovations in how we retrieve the information, how we cache it and how we present it. We have also optimized the access methods so only relevant items are retrieved in the first place.

New filtering capabilities also make it possible to really refine these lists to just what you need making the delivery times even faster. As Dave Banovetz, lead engineer on ERO said “the more defined your query the faster you get results.”

Due to several z/OS operating system constraints, it was common to maximize the storage utilization on these multi-thousand component lists. Again some very clever programming allows us to capture all the data and keep well short of these memory limitations.

To learn more about the new features and capabilities in ChangeMan ZMF version 8.1 please contact me.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/08/changeman-8-1-sneak-peek-ero-turbo-charge/feed/4Thursday: Join Patrick Debois, “DevOps” founder, live in this webcasthttp://www.serena.com/blog/2014/08/join-patrick-debois-devops-founder-live-in-this-webcast/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=join-patrick-debois-devops-founder-live-in-this-webcast
http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/08/join-patrick-debois-devops-founder-live-in-this-webcast/#commentsMon, 25 Aug 2014 12:40:00 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=4641UPDATE: Patrick was unable to speak last week, so we rescheduled the webcast to this Thursday at Noon ET / 9 am PT.

Patrick Debois coined the term “DevOps” as part of the first DevOpsDays nearly 5 years ago. Now DevOps is a major movement in the smallest start-ups and the largest enterprises.

I welcome you to join me in discussion with Patrick in a live webcast on August 20th to reflect on the first 5 years of DevOps and what the next 5 years may bring.

This will surely be one of my most interesting DevOps Drive-in webcasts, so please join me to ask your questions.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/08/join-patrick-debois-devops-founder-live-in-this-webcast/feed/0There’s a better way to deploy (conclusion)http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/08/theres-a-better-way-to-deploy-conclusion/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=theres-a-better-way-to-deploy-conclusion
http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/08/theres-a-better-way-to-deploy-conclusion/#commentsThu, 21 Aug 2014 18:00:40 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=4545(This is the conclusion of a 7-part series. Read part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5 and part 6.

Reality: Deployment should be repeatable and predictable

In this series we’ve looked at a number of reasons why people don’t automate their deployments. I had a boss once who was fond of saying, “If you don’t have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?” He was right

50% faster to create

Numerous customers all tell the same story. With Serena Deployment Automation they typically spend only half the time they used to creating deployment scripts because they are able to design them graphically and re-use standard parts that have been built for them and are included in the tool.

The customers build libraries of their own standard deployment (and back out) techniques and this brings consistency and repeatability across the organization. This saves time when building the scripts and saves even more time when a deployment fails.

90% faster to execute

The “nut loose on the keyboard” has always been the limiting factor in any computer system. When deployments are automated there is no pause between steps while human-1.0 searches the network to see if the server restarted, no scanning the log for a completion code before running the next script, no calling the supervisor for the password … all things that add delay. And automation means running steps in parallel which human-1.0 doesn’t like to do.

25 billion deployments a day

The pace of deployment is the fastest accelerating aspect of our industry today. Fueled by smartphone applications business users expect deployments to happen with a daily cadence where once they were happy to get a monthly refresh. By 2020 there will be 25 billion devices connected to the Internet (that’s 3.5 devices for every person on the planet!) all in need of frequent updates from you.

Today there are 1.3 billion smartphone users and every one of them is a release management expert. Each day they decide which apps to update and which delete from their devices. They make these judgments based on a hundred factors that fuel their instinct for what’s good and what’s not, how much space they might save and how much battery they consume. Profound, technically complex decisions by users not trained or skilled in Information Technology but experienced in who delivers what they want with repeatable precision and without disruption.

Whether you are deploying to a mainframe or to a wearable device, on-premise or a cloud, you are part of a global distribution machine that thrives on speed. Fast response to consumer need turns an idea into an industry. But it is an unforgiving place too: expectations are for flawless execution every day because one failure can turn your “coolest” organization into the “coldest” has-been at the speed of a single tweet.

Delivering that consumer confidence only comes when you have the confidence in your ability to deliver. Automation is how you establish confidence and delivery it repeatedly.

Systems are best at repetitive. Humans are best at creative.

DOWNLOAD THE COMMUNITY EDITION FOR FREE TODAY

In order to help you get started with your automation, Serena has made their latest version of Serena Deployment Automation available in a Community Edition format that lets you experience the most up-to-date deployment automation technology for free. Download it here today.

Errors do occur. They occur for a reason. Often those reasons are out of our control. Someone changes an IP Address of a server. Someone changes the password to the back office system. Someone changes the name of a shared .DLL.

Of course in a well-managed and carefully controlled environment those kinds of things shouldn’t happen without the proper authentication, notification and approval. And the infamous “someone” is a responsible professional who calculates the impact of their changes and collaborates with everyone to minimize that impact. In a perfect world.

In the real world change is constant and calculating the consequences of change virtually impossible. Errors can occur and it is our job as release engineers to ensure that they don’t.

Every time we manually fix a problem we waste our effort and no one learns from the experience. The same errors occur repeatedly and we keep applying the same fixes.

When your deployment is automated there might still be errors that occur. However now, when you improve the automation, those errors are addressed once and for all. Each time you do this you save time and money for your organization and get closer to a comprehensive solution.

Never send out another memo about a changed process or new exception. Implement them in the deployment automation directly so that they become the new organizational standard.

And never worry again about the changes to your tool chain when vendors update their tool integrations. With Serena solutions we keep an extensive library of deployment tool vendor integrations so you don’t need to.

In order to help you get started with your automation, Serena has made their latest version of Serena Deployment Automation available in a Community Edition format that lets you experience the most up-to-date deployment automation technology for free. Download it here today.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/08/theres-a-better-way-to-deploy-part-6/feed/0DevOps at 5 – Ready to Cross the Chasm?http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/08/devops-at-5-ready-to-cross-the-chasm/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=devops-at-5-ready-to-cross-the-chasm
http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/08/devops-at-5-ready-to-cross-the-chasm/#commentsFri, 15 Aug 2014 22:20:29 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=4630As the DevOps movement approaches its 5 year anniversary, the question remains: is the movement ready to cross the chasm into mainstream IT?

Stories of unicorns abound, and if we believe the vendors and early adopter case studies for the enterprise, we would be feeling that we are on the other side of the chasm, ready to get inside the tornado, change the culture and charge right into continuous delivery.

But has the transition happened from visionary to pragmatist? Where are we with DevOps in year 5? Where will we be in year 10? The movement has its share of innovators and visionaries. We have invited one of them, Patrick Debois, who first coined the term “DevOps,” to Serena’s DevOps Drive-in on August 20thto give his views of the current and future state of DevOps. See you there!

Helicopters have been described as “10,000 parts flying together in close formation. It is the mechanic’s job to keep that formation as tight as possible.”

Modern software applications comprise of millions of parts when you consider the huge chunks of code we bind into our applications from the database, security, web server, communications, encryption and authentication vendors. Add to that the seemingly infinite numbers of dependencies on external web services and internal CRM and financial systems.

There are 100 million lines of code in the Ford Taurus

But, just like the helicopter’s mechanic, the software and release engineers can’t be there all the time the system is on the air (or in the air).

It would be prohibitively expensive to have engineers chaperoning their application 24×7. Yet, whenever there is a deployment, no matter how routine, release engineers “want to be there just in case.”

This is laudable commitment to ensuring success but belies a worrisome truth. Is the release engineer who hangs around the release “just in case” more capable than the one who doesn’t hang around but gets on with the next release automation task?

Deployment Automation maintains an inventory of every artifact deployed

Automation means never having to say you’re sorry

Release engineers who build automated deployments know that they can incorporate all the necessary logic to deal with the expected (and unexpected) consequences of their deployments. They know they can leave the automation to execute quietly and efficiently without human intervention.

Automation engineers also know if that if something occurs that has not happened before they can a) handle that safely too and b) add further automation to deal with this new exception in a proper, predictable fashion each time it occurs in the future.

Serena’s Deployment Automation technology release engineers are freed up from constant script development and modification. Now release engineers can turn their attention to supporting the development teams and enabling their continuous improvement programs, their continuous integration process and their continuous delivery goals.

Instead of firefighting every failed script and every broken deployment, release engineers can use the Serena Deployment Automation logging capabilities to do full root cause analysis of problems that arise. Then they get to address the problem at its source by improving the coverage and completeness of the automation eliminating the possibility of future errors occurring.

DOWNLOAD THE COMMUNITY EDITION FOR FREE TODAY

In order to help you get started with your automation, Serena has made their latest version of Serena Deployment Automation available in a Community Edition format that lets you experience the most up-to-date deployment automation technology for free. Download it here today.

“I don’t want to know why it happened: I just want you to fix it!” was what I was told early one morning by the Director of Sales. And she was right: getting the online store back online was the most important thing for the business. Blamestorming would come later.

There is a temptation at 3:00 am to just do whatever it takes to bring the system back on the air even if that means bypassing protocols and procedures designed to protect system integrity. Sales-and-Marketing and Audit-and-Compliance might not see eye-to-eye on this approach.

So why do emergency fixes have to be different? This myth is all about time. The time it takes to write the script. The time it takes to execute the script. The time it takes to get the system back on the air.

Approvals where you need them

Half the effort and a tenth of the time

With Serena’s Deployment Automation we can halve the time it takes to create a script and we reduce that actual deployment times by 90%. And we do not bypass the audit controls, the change reporting or the system integrity.

Whether you are changing one setting in a DNS configuration or every .DLL in the application the procedure for updating your application is the same. You should not rely on the skill, experience and knowledge of a tired release engineer who is working under the pressure of a very upset executive. It is at these times when you must rely upon proven and reliable solutions that deploy consistently, safely and quickly.

DOWNLOAD THE COMMUNITY EDITION FOR FREE TODAY

In order to help you get started with your automation, Serena has made their latest version of Serena Deployment Automation available in a Community Edition format that lets you experience the most up-to-date deployment automation technology for free. Download it here today.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/08/theres-a-better-way-to-delpoy-part-4/feed/0Free Your Deployments: Get Community Edition Free Foreverhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2014/08/free-your-deployments-get-community-edition-free-forever/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=free-your-deployments-get-community-edition-free-forever
http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/08/free-your-deployments-get-community-edition-free-forever/#commentsFri, 08 Aug 2014 00:07:44 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=4608I’m excited to announce that we’ve made Serena Deployment Automation free for everyone…and free forever. The Community Edition provides full product functionality with deployment to 5 virtual or physical servers. You can add more end points for the new low price of just $1,499.

You can learn more about Serena Deployment Automation and download the Community Edition for free at www.serena.com/freedeploy.

So, let’s get to the why, what and how of it all…

Why?

We’re making the Community Edition free for a few reasons. First, we believe we have the best application deployment automation tool of all, and we want to get it into hands of as many people as possible. Whether you are in application development and building out your continuous delivery toolchain, or you are in IT ops automating your production deployments, you want to use the best. Yes, you can try to do this with your own hand-built scripts and general purpose automation tools, but we think you are much better off using purpose-built tooling for the job. Now that you can get started for free, there’s no excuse to keep building automation from scratch.

Second, we are big believers in, and supporters of, the DevOps movement. We’ve been providing change management, configuration management, release management and deployment automation tools for years, and we know how important they are to automating everything but staying in control. We want to support all of you in the DevOps community with what until now has been a missing piece of the community toolchain: deployment automation. You can get free build and continuous integration tools, and we like Jenkins a lot, and you can get free infrastructure automation tools like Chef, but neither of those are perfect for the deployment steps in continuous delivery…whether into per-production or production environments. So, now you can put it all together without much effort. We provide plug-ins for Jenkins and Chef and some 50 other tools.

What?

Serena Deployment Automation is a mature, successful commercial application that’s now on version 5. We are proud to have it in use by some of the biggest and most important enterprises around the world. While it’s “enterprise” enough for them, it’s easy enough for even a small team to use. When you download the Community Edition, you get the full product functionality. You get to deploy to five end points, which can be physical or virtual servers. You get support from the community of other Serena Deployment Automation users, and you get great documentation, help, samples and examples.

So, you are wondering, what don’t I get? Well, you don’t get access to our award-winning 24×7 technical support. As you can understand, we reserve those precious resources for our paid customers on the Professional Edition. But, you can easily become a paying customer with the low end point price of just $1,499. We are confident you will find the product exceeds your expectations for application-centric deployment technology, and that you’ll want to add more end points. That’s how we make money and pay our developers to build cool new capabilities for you and the rest of the community.

How?

We’ve made it really easy to get started. Simply visit our website at serena.com/freedeploy, read up on Serena Deployment Automation and click to download the Community Edition. I highly recommend visiting our Get Started page, where we highlight the five simple steps to get started with Community Edition and get quickly to your first automated deployment.

My second big recommendation is to download the VirtualBox appliance version. You’ll have a Linux server with Serena Deployment Automation already installed and configured, sample processes and plugs-ins already baked in, and your first server agent already deployed. You can go from download to deploy pretty quickly. Of course, we also make the installation files for Linux and Windows available separately, so if you want to do the install and configuration yourself, go for it.

Finally, I encourage you to engage in the community to share your learnings, take advantage of the great content that’s already there, ask your questions and access updates and new add-ons. It’s always at deploy-community.serena.com.

When?

Now is a good time. Or later this evening. Or maybe on the weekend. This is a great opportunity to automate the next step in your continuous delivery journey to DevOps nirvana, so go for it.

Drop me a comment here or in the community. I look forward to hearing about your experience!

When we started this series we talked about how release engineers have difficulty in keeping up with the rate of change in their environment. Every day a new security patch or software update is applied that changes the known topology of one or more deployment targets.

This is why, some release engineers insist, they have to hand-craft the deployment scripts each and every time.

In an ideal world every target environment would be standardized. But we don’t live in an ideal world. Whether it is our own on-premise platforms, virtualized or cloud platforms we know that their configurations are in a state of constant evolution. This makes it hard for release engineers who must spend time determining the target topology before they write and execute the deployment script.

Any time we rely upon humans we introduce the possibility of error. What if we could detect the target topology before we deploy and then follow a script for that combination of configurations?

Serena’s Deployment Automation allows you to do just that. In fact it even allows you to stand up your virtualized and cloud-based platforms right there in your deployment thus ensuring that the deployment target is what you expect it to be.

All new process editor

Out of the box Serena Deployment Automation integrates with many third party technologies. Everything from your favorite code repository and build tool to your deployment and test technologies and it even integrates with your problem management system.

Using a graphical design environment, release engineers can construct their deployment automation quickly and design it so that different logical paths are followed depending on what target topology is encountered.

Now you get to build upon your proven automation and keep pace with the evolving landscape that surrounds you.

DOWNLOAD THE COMMUNITY EDITION FOR FREE TODAY

In order to help you get started with your automation, Serena has made their latest version of Serena Deployment Automation available in a Community Edition format that lets you experience the most up-to-date deployment automation technology for free. Download it here today.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/08/theres-a-better-way-to-deploy-part-3/feed/0Live from SHARE in Pittsburg (Wednesday)http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/08/live-from-share-in-pittsburg-wednesday/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=live-from-share-in-pittsburg-wednesday
http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/08/live-from-share-in-pittsburg-wednesday/#commentsWed, 06 Aug 2014 19:53:51 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=4602The third day of the expo started at 10:30 this morning. It was very quiet competing against a very full and interesting agenda in the general sessions.

It was very rewarding to see so many customers come by and talk about their experiences with ChangeMan ZMF. We had one customer, who had been working as a ChangeMan ZMF Administrator for over 20 years, come by with his intern, a young college graduate who was being trained to take over from him when he retires. It was very moving to see one generation handing off to the next.

SHARE runs a fun competition for the attendees with some excellent prizes. They asked us for a question to add to their quiz and so we asked, “ChangeMan ZMF has been the leading mainframe software change, configuration and release management solution for 29 years. What was it originally called?” Do you know the answer? Post your answer in the comments section – sorry no prizes. I’ll post the answer next week.

Keep following the tweets @SerenaSoftware and @KevinParkerUSA.

And don’t forget to watch my presentation live from SHARE on the SHARE Live tomorrow at 08:30 Eastern Daylight Time

If you want to simplify and automate software deployments, then download the Community Edition of Serena Deployment Automation. By the end of the day you’ll be enabling continuous delivery for your dev teams and production deployments for your ops teams. You’ll be enabling the deployment pipeline and reducing cycle times faster than you thought possible. With Serena Deployment Automation, you will deliver high-quality, valuable software to your target environments with repeatability and predictability.

This is what customers are already experiencing …

Deployment time reduced by 90% and effort by 50%

End-to-end deployments in the cloud and on premise – including mobile devices

Out-of-the-box integration with your entire DevOps tool-chain

Developer self-service enablement

… time for you to be part of the community.

Is it really free?

Yes! And it’s free forever! This is not a limited-time trial, this is not a limited functionality offer. You can download the fully functional product, templates, samples and quick-start guides. We have limited this version to five end-points so you can experience all the features of the very best in deployment automation.

When you’re ready, you can upgrade to the Professional Version for just $1,499 an end-point and you still get to keep your original 5 for free.

Installation is easy!

We have even configured a virtual appliance with all the operating system, product and samples already configured. You can download your appliance today and and be up and running minuted later (you’ll need to download the Virtual Box software for your platform (Windows, OS X, Linux, Solaris) to use the appliance.

Included are four common deployment templates and there will be more in the future.

Or download the full product for your platform and follow the simple installation guide to be up and running your own customized Deployment Automation solution.

What about support?

The Community Edition is supported by the Development Automation community of users. You will be directed to the community when you sign up for the download. You can see there are several threads already chatting about how to get the most out of Serena Deployment Automation.

Once you’ve downloaded the product we’ll check in with you in a few days to see how it’s going. If you like it you can keep using the Community Edition for as long as you like and you can even get updates as and when they become available. And its still free. Forever. Once you’re ready to upgrade to the Professional version simply contact us and we’ll help you extend your deployments to your entire enterprise.

We even have support for the mainframe in the Professional Edition.

So? What are you waiting for?

It’s time to try the Community Edition now and start deploying before you go home. Get your deployment automation started and experience the most up-to-date deployment automation technology for free. Download it here today.

I just slipped away from the conference to pen a few notes about today here at SHARE. There are more than 1,000 attendees from all over the world and it is great to see so many familiar faces once again.

The opening address this morning was a very salutary reminder that we live in a world of constant threat to our computer systems. It isn’t just threats terrorists from without and disgruntled employees with anymore. Now we face more sophisticated challenges from cyber criminals, foreign and domestic security agencies and kids in dorm rooms. Keeping pace with those threats is probably what most IT/IS departments strive for. Clearly that is a losing proposition so we need to turn our focus on getting ahead of the threats on one hand and hardening our systems on the other hand. Its like a sinking ship: you can bail water, your can try to plug the hole but it’s best if you do both.

Today I took time to look at mainframe trends and one thing that caught my eye, and it came up in a number of sessions, was the idea that mainframe skills are not that different from the skills used, in all fields, on non-mainframe platforms. The challenge is getting developers and systems programmers to make the move to the mainframe. The advent of modern user interfaces, especially through Eclipse, is making it possible for a new migration of people to the mainframe. Here at Serena we have been long term advocates of what we call “role specific user interfaces”, by which we mean that if you are a developer your needs for interaction with a system are going to be very different than if you’re a tool administrator. Java developers need different tools to COBOL developers. The idea that “one size fits all” satisfies no one.

Today the Serena booth on the expo floor has been busier than ever. We had a huge crowd last night for the prize drawing of a Nexus 7. I expect the crowd to be just as big tonight as we give away another one.

The new ChangeMan SSM 8.4 is wowing every Systems Programmer who takes the test drive. And most are signing up for the free 90-days trial. You can sign up to.

We’re here again tonight until 7:30 pm and you’ll find us at booth #418.

In the last post we talked about some of the myths about release and deployment. Perhaps the most telling comment there was the belief that “Every deployment is unique.”

Let’s break that apart and see what it really means and why it just doesn’t hold up in reality.

Deploying an application comprises of a number of parts:

The “payload” – what is actually being deployed and that will be code, scripts, configuration items, SQL, data and so on

The “set up” – what you have to do before you can deploy the “payload” like stopping servers, data migration and reformatting and backing up the environment

The “verify” – the what you have to do to be sure you deployed correctly

The “startup” – what you have to do to bring things back on the air after you have verified that there has been a successful deployment including restarting servers, re-opening telecommunications, resetting log files

The “what if” – the steps you need to take if any part of the “set up”, the “verify” or “startup” doesn’t go as predicted

Deployment to multiple targets

Constant inconsistency is consistently predictable

Your application may be simple and confined to a few identical target platforms or it may be n-tiered and deployed to a chaotic topology completely out of your control. Irrespective your deployment will have these 5 elements.

All of these steps are predictable and any variation in the how the steps are executed is determinable. For example if there are no SQL DDL changes in the payload then there’s no need to stop the database. If the web server won’t stop abort the deployment and notify the release engineer.

It might take a release engineer the best part of a day to re-craft a deployment script for each “unique” deployment and even the very best engineers will only have a 99% success rate. If the script executes for an hour every day there will be at least three outages a year and more time spent fixing scripts that actually deploying.

With Serena’s Deployment Automation solution you spend less time developing scripts because the whole process is entirely graphical. You get to reuse elements for deploying to standard environments like Oracle database and the Amazon cloud. You get to spend more time thinking about what to do if the deployment fails and you get to build in all the logic you need so that even the most diverse and complex deployments become commonplace and predictable. Your release engineers spend their time improving and automating and Serena Deployment Automation takes care of everything else.

It has been pretty hectic here this afternoon at the Serena booth (#418) where we are showcasing the latest version of ChangeMan SSM to the nearly 1,000 attendees. Response has been great and a number of Systems Programmers have taken advantage of the special offer of trying ChangeMan SSM for free for 90-days. You can be part of this great offer too by signing up for the free trial at www.serena.com/freessm

This morning’s keynote presentation was very thought provoking and looked at the idea of trying to get the right resources and right technology in the right place in order to sustain the modernization that businesses need in the 21st century. The message was clear, the mainframe is still at the heart of the enterprise and is just as capable of contributing to, and leading in many cases, an organization’s innovation initiatives and it will continue to remain relevant for many decades to come.

Away from the general session there were many topics to choose from and I was drawn to the Big Data and Big Analytics sessions. For more than a decade Serena has been pioneering the delivery of corporate insight from the host to mobile devices. As long ago as 1999 we were alerting Change and Release Managers on their pagers about production deployments and getting their approvals from the web. Now IBM has developed the infrastructure to make that happen with ease and speed for all companies. The recent announcement of an “alliance” between IBM and Apple is proof that the battle is over and the smartphone and smart devices win and that the data battle is over too (in IBM’s view) it will thrive in the corporate data-center on the mainframe.

The expo is winding down right now but we’ll be here until 7:30 pm if you want to stop by booth #418. Also you can track the activities live on Twitter by following the hash tag #SHAREorg and by following @SerenaSoftware and @KevinParkerUSA.

5 deployment traps we can’t seem to avoid

In this 7-part series we’ll look at some common misconceptions about the process of deploying software in today’s unforgiving world. Over the next few posts we tackle these myths head on and show how there is a better way.

Releasing software into the wild is exciting and terrifying. When it goes well: we party. When it doesn’t: we spend the weekend without sleep, showers, food or sleep. Wait! Did I mention no sleep already?

Too often the reason our deployments fail is because we fall into the same traps over and over again. We never have time to step back and do it right so we keep on doing it the best we can and that is where the errors creep in.

Here are five common traps we fall into that are easy to avoid and inexpensive to solve.

1: Every deployment is unique

There’s your whole problem. It is true that what is being deployed is (or at least should be) different each time you deploy but how it is deployed needs to be standardized and familiar so it becomes repeatable and predictable. Each time you update an application it likely that it has the same topology, the same dependencies, the same footprint and the same risks.

2: Every target is unique

This is a common problem too. In the Internet of Things every device on every hip, in every pocket and buried on our phone is a unique configuration of versions and patches and operating systems. Every server has custom settings and distinctive considerations that need to be accommodated. It is beyond any human’s ability to track and manage the discrepancies amongst so many deployment targets. But yet we try with our spreadsheets and notebooks.

3: Emergency fixes are different

On a Sunday morning, at 3:00 am, no one wants to modify the 27 deployment scripts and the 81 server config files or follow the defined procedures to stop the 14 databases and quiesce the 8 transaction queues just to make a simple change. A skilled developer can do what’s need by writing a simple PERL script, right? But on Monday morning, at 8:00 am, no one wants to explain to the CEO why overnight trading in Tokyo and Hong Kong was down either. In many ways emergency fixes have more risk because they are usually developed under pressure, tested less, by pass approval levels and get deployed in whatever way seems quickest. There is too great a temptation (or expectation) to do what is expedient over what it right because the right way is the long way. Yet we all know the automated way is the right way and the fastest (and safest) way.

4: Each deployment needs me

I remember sitting in a meeting room. Outside I could see two developers peering at a screen and nodding their heads up and down in an erratic and random manner. I asked the client what was happening and she explained they were deploying a release and “watching the script go by in case something bad happened.” If a deployment fails many release engineers will roll up their sleeves and start to unpick the changes and the rest will try to fix it on the fly and keep going. This is why deployments need their release engineers to be close during the process. But what are they going to do if the deployment stops (or worse flags and error and doesn’t stop)? They have to find the problem and decide “fix forward” or “backout”? They have to then work out which is best and easiest, quickest, safest to do. If this was built right into the scripts from the beginning they could devote their energies to finding out why it failed and fixing that.

5: Errors happen: its software

There is a sense that errors are inevitable. That something will always get missed and we can correct for that later. If we are agile and iterating in small increments the risks are low and the impact minimal. In our hearts we know that is bogus. One change to one configuration line in a server can stop it from executing and bring our entire system to a halt.

Conclusion

In the next post we will address these issues and look at what is needed to be effective and efficient in deploying software. As this series continues I would welcome your thoughts and experiences. You can add them right here.

If you are a xChange alumnus, you will have been sent a discount code giving a very special price as a thank you for being a returning attendee.

If you are new to xChange, we have a special promotional code for you that will save you $300 off the full price and this is good through August 29th, 2014. You can contact me directly at kparker@serena.com to get your discount code.

Looking forward to seeing you in DC!

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/07/xchange15-registration-open-save-300-thru-august-29th/feed/0ITIL vs. DevOps – Friend or Foe? Pink’s George Spalding has an opinion…http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/07/itil-vs-devops-friend-or-foe-pinks-george-spalding-has-an-opinion/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=itil-vs-devops-friend-or-foe-pinks-george-spalding-has-an-opinion
http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/07/itil-vs-devops-friend-or-foe-pinks-george-spalding-has-an-opinion/#commentsThu, 17 Jul 2014 23:49:30 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=4491The intersection of ITIL and DevOps is an interesting one, and a topic that we have previouslydiscussed. This topic is getting more and more air play as we see enterprises adopting DevOps practices like Continuous Delivery and Infrastructure as Code. After all, ITIL has been around for 25 years, and many enterprise IT organizations have adopted ITSM as their process/best practice backbone for delivering value to the business. But most IT shops are still not satisfied with their performance and are starting to turn to DevOps since it promises more agility and better quality.

How do ITIL and DevOps work together? How does DevOps impact ITIL? How do you implement Continuous Delivery in an ITIL shop? There are many questions that need answers. We’ve asked George Spalding from Pink Elephant to join us at the DevOps Drive-in on July 25th to help provide some answers. ITIL and DevOps – Friend or Foe? Let’s ask George and find out.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/07/itil-vs-devops-friend-or-foe-pinks-george-spalding-has-an-opinion/feed/2Supercharging Dimensions CMhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2014/07/supercharging-dimensions-cm/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=supercharging-dimensions-cm
http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/07/supercharging-dimensions-cm/#commentsThu, 17 Jul 2014 15:46:58 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=4503Two weeks ago I had the good fortune to be at the Serena Customer Day in Frankfurt. There I was able to see the latest version of Dimensions CM demonstrated by Don Irvine, Senior Director of the Dimensions Development Team. After the event I sat down with him to ask him about the work his team had been doing on the performance of Dimensions 14.

KP: Great Demo Don. I heard you mention the great work you’ve been doing on performance of Dimensions. With super-fast computers and high-speed networks why is it still important to optimize for performance?

DI: The modern development environment has changed, not only do we need to delivery more changes faster than ever before, but we have to deal with our development teams being heavily distributed on a global scale. As an example, the Dimensions development team is split across two continents and multiple sites and several home workers for good measure.

KP: How did you determine when you were fast enough?

DI: Good question! When we started CM 14, we set ourselves a goal of being able to match the performance of simple distributed version management tools whilst, at the same time, providing the richness of features and benefits of a centrally managed repository. What we came up with was a clever caching technology that we call the Personal Library Cache Directory (PLCD) which, when coupled with a new and really innovative delta transfer technique, has literally supercharged our file transfers.

KP: That sounds impressive. Do you have metrics you can share?

DI: Earlier this week I got to see the results of these changes, and the performance is truly breathtaking! Our own development server is a Dimensions CM server of course. The produiction instance of that server is located in Oregon, on the West Coast of the United States, but my development teams are based in around the world with most being in our centers in St. Albans in the UK and in Kiev in the Ukraine. This network topology results in my teams having both limited bandwidth and high latency (ping time in excess of 200ms) to the Dimensions server. The entire source code for Dimensions CM is close to 40,000 artifacts and is just over 1.3GB in size. On a busy day when Dimensions CM version 12.2.2 was our production server the fetch of all the source code, using a Library Cache in our European data center, would take over 200 seconds. For developer who were home based and not using the Library Cache it could take in excess of 20 minutes. Now with CM 14 this same operations takes around 70 seconds.

KP: Don, that is really impressive. How does that compare to those simple versioning systems like SubVersion?

DI: We did do some benchmarks against SubVersion and GIT. In comparison the same fetch from Subversion took over 40 minutes to complete (KP: wow!), and from Git took 53 seconds but our instance of GIT was a clone of a local repository.

KP: So having a Dimensions repository hosted on the other side of the World now gives similar performance to having a distributed repository on your local machine?

DI: Exactly. But we’re not stopping there. Last week my team came to me with even more ideas for making Dimensions even faster still in the next release!

KP: Don, this is great. Congratulations to you and your exceptional team. Thanks for taking the time to chat with me today.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/07/supercharging-dimensions-cm/feed/0DevOps Driving the “Big Fat Rethink” at DevOpsDays Silicon Valley 2014http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/07/devops-driving-the-big-fat-rethink-at-devopsdays-silicon-valley-2014/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=devops-driving-the-big-fat-rethink-at-devopsdays-silicon-valley-2014
http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/07/devops-driving-the-big-fat-rethink-at-devopsdays-silicon-valley-2014/#commentsTue, 08 Jul 2014 18:59:20 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=4466DevOpsDays attracts the best and brightest from both development and operations: the ones who want to change how companies deliver software and improve the value delivered to the business. These leaders are challenging the current state of IT, and for good reason. The status quo is lacking in quality and not responsive enough to the business. The DevOps leaders are looking at new ways to change the work culture, the processes that deliver software and the technologies and tools to delivery that competitive edge to the business. Their work is driving a “BIG FAT RETHINK” on the whole traditional “People, Process and Technology” for building and deploying software.

John Willis opened up this year’s DevOpsDays Silicon Valley with a keynote on the “Big Fat Rethink.” He used the latest DevOps survey to point out that IT Performance is a Competitive Advantage, and one of the strongest predicators of IT Performance is an organizational culture that exhibits high trust, cross functional collaboration, shared responsibilities and continuous learning. These are DevOps principles and a big rethink on the traditional waterfall approach with silos of expertise and responsibility. John also discussed the big rethink on “Software as Infrastructure” extending it to the network and the entire data center, proposing a big fat rethink on extending declarative and desired state infrastructure beyond server configs, packaging and VM provisioning. Software Defined Everything, a Consumable Composable Infrastructure that deals with the intra-relationships of components and can be selected and assembled in various combinations to satisfy specific user requirements. Software is powering the world and the DevOps crew gets it!

There was also a “Big Fat Rethink” on the enterprise applicability of DevOps principles and practices. Adam Auerbach of Capital One gave a great presentation entitled, “How Capital One put Quality in the Driver’s seat thru DevOps and other Best Practices.” He provided a terrific overview of how his team transformed Capital One’s software delivery using DevOps. Capital One currently has 30 teams leveraging DevOps practices, and they are running DevOps processes across all frameworks (Java, .NET) and legacy apps, including the mainframe. They are using Kanban and have leveraged the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) to bootstrap their DevOps teams. This was a terrific example of how an enterprise did a “rethink” on their software delivery process, and how indeed, DevOps is ready for the enterprise!

Finally, the conference offered up a “Bit Fat Rethink” on ITIL. There was an Openspaces discussion on the impact of DevOps on ITIL. The head of ITSM from Axelos was in attendance, and we discussed how Continuous Delivery is driving a rethink on Change Advisory Boards (do we need them?) and the whole ITIL Service Transition process. There was good discussion about ITIL moving forward and how DevOps and ITIL can complement each other. This will the main topic of our next DevOps Drive-in webcast featuring Pink’s George Spalding on July 24th.

DevOpsDays is a forum that challenges the current way teams, processes and tools are used to deliver software to the business. Lots to rethink about!

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/07/devops-driving-the-big-fat-rethink-at-devopsdays-silicon-valley-2014/feed/0Announcing xChange15 in Washington DC!http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/07/announcing-xchange15/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=announcing-xchange15
http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/07/announcing-xchange15/#commentsMon, 07 Jul 2014 23:57:03 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=4478We are excited to announce that Serena’s xChange15 will be from Sunday March 22nd until Wednesday March 25th 2015. We are bringing xChange back to the east coast and will be in the wonderful Washington D.C. area in time for the First Day of Spring and the world-famous Cherry Blossom Festival. So mark your calendars today! We’ve selected the prestigious Ritz-Carlton at Tyson’s Corner for the event and we have secured an amazing rate for the accommodation there.

This year we will be focusing on number of critical IT issues and we will be showcasing our latest innovations in Release Management and Release Automation. We also bringing news and updates to our product line and will be launching exciting new releases first at xChange!

We will have more than 60 specialist sessions delivered by you, our customers and partners, as well as by the amazing technical teams from R&D, Customer Support and Professional Services. Deep dive, hands-on and advanced topics will, once again, lead the content making xChange the most valuable three days you can spend.

We are looking for speakers right now to deliver the intensive sessions and we invite you to contribute around the topics of:

Application Development

Software Release and Deployment

Human and System Automation

Modern Mainframe Application Development

Industry Trends and Hot Topics

The usual and unique features of xChange will be back including the now famous AnswerZone with its intense one-on-one consulting sessions and the Birds-of-a-Feather lunches. In addition this time we are introducing Ignite Sessions and more dynamic, customer-led discussions. You’ll hear Serena executives as well as all the technical leadership describe the direction we are forging as the leader in Application Change, Release and Configuration Management and you will be able to interact with them in private briefing sessions throughout the conference.

Check here for more details and how to register. We will be posting regular updates such as the Agenda, Breakout Sessions, Training Sessions, Hotel Info, Special Events, Expo and Exhibit Hall, and more.

If you have ideas for presentations you want to give or if you have questions you want answered please drop me a note and I’ll share them with the xChange team.

Next month I will be presenting at the SHARE conference in Pittsburgh. The bi-annual event is the place to be to learn about the trends and tricks for developing modern applications on the mainframe.

No one knows better than the army of Change and Release Managers that guard the mainframe environment, just how risky it is to change anything on the mainframe. And no one knows better than they just how business threatening it is not to keep pace with the market and customer needs. Balancing these two forces has been at the heart of the mainframe world for 5 decades now.

My presentation takes a look at how the world of “change” (in all of its forms and meanings) is changing and suggests that we need to change the way we think about and react to change. If you would like to watch the presentation you can attend in person or you can watch it online on the SHARE website. After the conference the presentation will be available on the SHARE website and I will post the presentation here also.

As well as exhibiting at the conference we will be meeting with many customers to share one-on-one briefings about the exciting new version of ChangeMan ZMF that will be available later this year. If you’d like to schedule a one-on-one briefing please let me know by emailing me at kparker@serena.com.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/07/every-change-is-an-outage-waiting-to-happen/feed/0Continuous Delivery Served up in Boston and New Yorkhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2014/06/continuous-delivery-served-up-in-boston-and-new-york/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=continuous-delivery-served-up-in-boston-and-new-york
http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/06/continuous-delivery-served-up-in-boston-and-new-york/#commentsWed, 25 Jun 2014 15:04:51 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=4448I’m always interested in what motivates people. What makes them change, improve, and innovate? I had an opportunity to attend both the Jenkins User Conference in Boston and the CloudBees Continuous Delivery Summit in New York City, both of which were sponsored by Serena and both of which were filled to capacity. There were a lot of motivated attendees, and I had an opportunity to speak with many of them.

All of them were interested in ways to transform their current way of building and delivering software using the patterns and practices of Continuous Delivery. Everyone knows that their current method is broken and that “small, agile and fast” beats “big, hairy and slow,” hands down. You could sense the urgency to address challenges with the deployment pipeline.

What struck me was the diversity of company types, sizes, industries and maturity levels. I spoke with companies that were building RFID services in the cloud for large retailers, companies trying to improve quality and cycle times for the production of embedded software in medical devices and companies struggling with constructing deployment pipelines for mobile and cloud environments. There was lots of discussion around where to start, how to deal with legacy applications and infrastructures and what tools to use. Improving quality and reducing cycle times by automating the deployment pipeline was the main topic for both days.

In New York, Forrester analyst Kurt Bittner opened up the CD Summit with a compelling presentation on the “Business of Continuous Delivery.” Kurt shared some very interesting insights, calling Continuous Delivery “Agile 3.0″ and stating that CD is the engine that enables businesses to obtain a competitive advantage by allowing them to handle a high rate of change. Maximizing throughput minimizes wait and waste and increases innovation rate, which Kurt defined as the percentage of application development spending focused on new capabilities vs. maintenance of existing capabilities.

The two events were also great places to roll out our new deployment automation software free trial. We encouraged those Jenkins users looking to extend their DevOps toolchains with deployment automation to check out Serena Release Automation, and we expect to see a lot of downloads in the coming days.

Continuous Delivery is already reshaping how software is being delivered. We have the successful “DevOps unicorns” as today’s examples but expect to see a lot more big enterprises telling their success stories soon. As William Gibson said (and mentioned by Kurt in his presentation): “The Future is already here — it’s just not evenly distributed.”

How far along are you in your Continuous Delivery journey? Leave a comment and let me know.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/06/continuous-delivery-served-up-in-boston-and-new-york/feed/0Try Serena Deployment Automation Software for Freehttp://www.serena.com/blog/2014/06/try-serena-deployment-automation-software-for-free/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=try-serena-deployment-automation-software-for-free
http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/06/try-serena-deployment-automation-software-for-free/#commentsTue, 17 Jun 2014 20:50:44 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=4432Many organizations are experimenting with different DevOps automation tools, and we want to make that easier with our new 30-day free trial of our deployment automation product, Serena Release Automation. We’ve always had the free trial, but now we’ve made it a lot easier for you to get. Simply click through to www.serena.com/freedeploy, fill out a few fields and we’ll have an email with download links in your inbox in minutes.

The 30-day free trial of deployment automation provides full functionality with deployment to 5 end points (servers or virtual environments.) We include links to documentation, the community forums, technical support, videos and more to help you get the product installed and running quickly. You can also come to our weekly office hours on Friday at 10 am to see a live demo and ask your questions. Whether you are downloading the free trial or not, sign up at http://ser.so/weekly-demo-10-signup.

Take a look at the 30-day free trial of deployment automation as part of your DevOps automation journey…and let me know what you think!

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/06/try-serena-deployment-automation-software-for-free/feed/2Announcing Dimensions CM 14 – The Best Ever!http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/06/announcing-dimensions-cm-14-the-best-ever/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=announcing-dimensions-cm-14-the-best-ever
http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/06/announcing-dimensions-cm-14-the-best-ever/#commentsTue, 10 Jun 2014 12:00:46 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=4410It is with great pleasure that we announce the release of Serena Dimensions CM 14, which is without a doubt the most innovative and powerful release of our premier software change and configuration management (SCCM) product ever.

Resolving the growing complexity of application development has been a common theme as we engineered this new release in partnership with 150 current customers that participated in our Preview, Special Interest and Beta programs. Contributions from our customers drove the many evolutionary features we introduced, and their help validating and verifying our implementation approach has been invaluable. Thank you to all 150!

Many of the new capabilities in Dimensions CM 14 relate to the introduction of changesets, which are central to eliminating the complexity and concern associated with the growing adoption of parallel development. We are delighted to introduce a new visual user interface for Dimensions CM 14 that we call Pulse that, and as its name implies, provides visibility and insight into the heartbeat of development. The ability to visualize changes and code branches across multiple projects, platforms and locations enables teams to streamline the delivery of code changes in a process that is consistent and easily managed, while the new visual change history provides continuous insight into change health and release readiness. As Ken Vane from Navy Federal Credit Union said, “The visibility and insight that Dimensions CM 14 provides allows us to see if we are converging to quality or diverging from quality in real time.”

Software development/engineering requires extensive collaboration across team members, so with Dimensions CM 14 we introduced a web-based collaborative peer review capability that is integrated directly into the development process and accessible within the developer’s IDE. As developers, we thrive on teamwork and collaboration and now can do so through in-line comments/annotations and associated discussion threads, increasing visibility and speeding delivery. Doing so is critically important, especially in complex, globally-dispersed development team. As Richard Prescott, Software Development Technical Lead at SPTS technologies and customer preview program participant, observes, “The task of managing the merge of new features or patches from one branch to another will be greatly simplified, and the adoption of peer review will improve team collaboration and quality.”

Many of our customers use development teams spread around the globe, requiring high levels of scalability and security to protect their intellectual property. During the development of Dimensions CM 14, we listened carefully to the needs of software development teams in these environments and are delivering significant performance and security enhancements. Performance is everything to developers, and we have introduced a personal library cache that significantly speeds access to files through a secure local cache for those geographically distributed team members. In addition we have considerably enhanced network performance through delta file transfers of only the changed sections of text or binary files. Initial results from beta customers reveal a significant improvement in performance and accessibility, and we look forward to publishing additional results from our early adopters.

Years ago, I thought we were in the midst of development platform consolidation, but today we are just exploding again with the addition of new mobile and cloud environments. We heard our customers who are extending their current applications, or building new applications for today’s modern mobile devices, and delivered new support for development platforms and clients. With Dimensions CM 14 we have extended our platform support through a native integration with the Appcelerator platform and with integration and interoperability with Apple’s Xcode. We also support Mac OS X clients with the addition of support for Safari.

There are many more features and capabilities to mention, so I’ll direct you to the following links to learn more:

I couldn’t be more thrilled and delighted with the release of Dimensions CM 14! For current Dimensions CM customers, I encourage you to download, install and test the new version, then contact Serena for any help you need with the upgrade. For those of you interested in learning how Dimensions CM 14 can replace other SCCM solutions in your enterprise, please contact me directly, reach out to your Serena account executive or simply email info@serena.com

Finally, my thanks and congratulations go out to the Serena team for their superb effort in delivering the Best Dimensions CM Product Ever and to the many customers who contributed to it through the Preview Program.

In order for you to deliver, you need to deploy fast and deploy easy. Fast deployments ensure fast feedback, enabling you to fix, enhance or change the product as fast as the market requires and faster than your competitors. This is market pull rather than company push. A system that pulls rather than pushes needs to not only be fast but also easy. It has to be easy because every check-in could be a release candidate.

Development teams have been developing and building applications quickly and easily through Continuous Integration and often using Jenkins. But, now they need to automate the rest of the deployment pipeline in order to get to Continuous Delivery.

We are very excited to partner with the host of both of these events, CloudBees, to help you deliver on the promise of Continuous Delivery. Come see CD in action!

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/06/deploy-fast-deploy-easy-especially-in-boston-and-new-york/feed/0Recap: 5 Keys to Building a Successful DevOps Culturehttp://www.serena.com/blog/2014/05/recap-5-keys-to-building-a-successful-devops-culture/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=recap-5-keys-to-building-a-successful-devops-culture
http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/05/recap-5-keys-to-building-a-successful-devops-culture/#commentsTue, 27 May 2014 23:37:22 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=4354DevOps is about being more responsive to the business by building and deploying software faster and better. Sounds good, right?

Enterprise IT is struggling to meet the needs of the business, and I wish I could give you a pill to just fix it. I can certainly give you software, and that will take some of the pain away, but the big improvement needs to be in peopleware and culture. Building and deploying software requires considerable collaboration and coordination by different people, teams and organizations. DevOps is a cultural movement focused on removing the barriers between the teams and organizations to deliver more value to the business faster. You can’t just buy DevOps, you have to also transform this culture.

At last week’s Serena DevOps Drive-in webcast, I spoke with Mandi Walls from Chef about keys to building a successful DevOps culture. During the webcast, we asked the attendees what the biggest barriers were for DevOps adoption, and the majority said it was lack of collaboration and cultural barriers (see chart).

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/05/recap-5-keys-to-building-a-successful-devops-culture/feed/03 Takeaways from DevOpsDays Austin 2014http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/05/3-takeaways-from-devopsdays-austin-2014/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=3-takeaways-from-devopsdays-austin-2014
http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/05/3-takeaways-from-devopsdays-austin-2014/#commentsTue, 20 May 2014 00:24:32 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=4327I recently attended DevOpsDays Austin 2014 and was very impressed by the event as a whole. The conference format provides a great medium for the attendees. The combination of thought leadership and technical presentation tracks along with Open Space discussions and Ignite talks, makes the two day event both informative and very interactive. Here are my three key takeaways from the event:

1. DevOps culture is still a big topic of discussion. Tools are a great enabler, but as the opening keynote speaker Andrew Clay Shafer (@littleidea), says in his post presentation interview, you can’t buy DevOps. In Andrew’s opening keynote presentation, he shows how different languages and tribal signaling leads to disconnects in both business and technical organizations.

Culture was another discussion point in the Enterprise DevOps open spaces I attended. There was a great discussion on how to get teams, organizations and management buy in. Whether you drive cultural change from the top down or bottom up, it is all about the people. Tools can influence behavior and help change culture, but “peopleware” is just as important as software. Clearly, this is a big topic that needs further discussion. In fact, we featuring Mandi Walls from Chef at our next DevOps Drive-in talking about this very subject.

2. Enterprise DevOps still lacks maturity. We need to continue developing the “how:” the patterns and best practices of DevOps for the Enterprise. Matt Ray (@mattray) provided a very good maturity lifecycle in his presentation “Helping Horses Become Unicorns.” He covered topics such as hardware management, OS management, infrastructure management, software deployments, incident management and even disaster recovery and postmortems, stressing both business and cultural issues. His assertion is that it is possible to transform a horse into a unicorn. I would say that enterprises don’t even need to become a unicorn. A faster, stronger horse FTW!

3. DevOps has not yet crossed the chasm but it’s getting a big push. Michael Cote (@cote) from 451 Research delivered a good presentation on “When is the DevOps Unicorn Going to Sprout Wings and Fly.” Cote mentions that over the next 10 years, mobile and cloud will initiate a massive rewrite or re-platform of applications, and that is demanding a new way of delivering software (DevOps). Cote reviewed the results of a 451 Research DevOps survey that gives a good view into the maturity of mainstream IT. His reference about white collar toolchains (e.g., Word and Excel) that don’t use version control rings so true. What I found particularly interesting is that almost 40% of the companies surveyed said that the one thing preventing them from reducing cycle times is human resource constraints. I think delivering on the DevOps principles (CAMS) would help with this constraint because the high performing organizations that I’ve seen are doing more with less and not more with more.

DevOpsDays is a great event organized around trying to solve a real hard and present problem. If you are involved with deploying or releasing software from development to production, I recommend you head to your local DevOpsDays event to see what the tip of the spear looks like. And, for a special event, join Serena at the special 5th anniversary of the founding of DevOpsDays in October in Belgium. It’s also the 5th anniversary of the first use of the term “DevOps,” selected as the hashtag for that first event by legend Patrick Debois.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/05/3-takeaways-from-devopsdays-austin-2014/feed/1Live Q&A on Changing Your DevOps Culturehttp://www.serena.com/blog/2014/05/live-qa-on-changing-your-devops-culture/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=live-qa-on-changing-your-devops-culture
http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/05/live-qa-on-changing-your-devops-culture/#commentsWed, 14 May 2014 15:28:16 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=4309For our May DevOps Drive-In webcast, we’re delighted to feature Mandi Walls, author of the eBook “Building a DevOps Culture,” published by O’Reilly. Mandi is a Technical Practice Manager at Chef and travels the world helping organizations increase their effectiveness using configuration management and modernizing IT practices.

She will join me in a discussion on the impact that culture has on driving successful adoption of DevOps practices. Register and join the webcast to participate in the live Q&A with Mandi and me, as this is sure to be an interesting discussion filled with tips and tricks for identifying cultural barriers and tearing them down.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/05/live-qa-on-changing-your-devops-culture/feed/1Delivering on Continuous Delivery with CloudBees and Serenahttp://www.serena.com/blog/2014/05/delivering-on-continuous-delivery-with-cloudbees-and-serena/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=delivering-on-continuous-delivery-with-cloudbees-and-serena
http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/05/delivering-on-continuous-delivery-with-cloudbees-and-serena/#commentsMon, 12 May 2014 16:05:51 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=4258At the April DevOps Drive-in, Serena Software and CloudBees announced their new partnership and provided a demo of how Continuous Delivery can work in the Enterprise.

I’m often asked, “How do you implement Continuous Delivery in the Enterprise?” Continuous Delivery (CD) can seem like an unattainable goal for many IT organizations. The first thing we need to do is to make sure everyone understands, “What is Continuous Delivery?”. I like how Martin Fowler describes it. Martin also states, “Continuous Delivery is sometimes confused with Continuous Deployment. Continuous Deployment means that every change goes through the pipeline and automatically gets put into production, resulting in many production deployments every day. Continuous Delivery just means that you are able to do frequent deployments but may choose not to do it, usually due to businesses preferring a slower rate of deployment. In order to do Continuous Deployment you must be doing Continuous Delivery.” Enterprise IT usually breathes a sigh of relief once they understand Continuous Delivery does not mean Continuous Deployment because in many Enterprise IT shops that is not going to happen, perhaps not even required.

So where do you start? We actually discussed this question in our April DevOps Drive-in. In fact, we asked the attendees, “Where are you on your Continuous Delivery journey?” The results were a bit surprising as only 8% said they had no plans to implement Continuous Delivery. Most were in the process of implementing Continuous Delivery and 25% are planning to implement it in the future.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/05/delivering-on-continuous-delivery-with-cloudbees-and-serena/feed/0Enterprise Release Management: Automated Deployments and the Big Ironhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2014/04/enterprise-release-management-automated-deployments-and-the-big-iron/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=enterprise-release-management-automated-deployments-and-the-big-iron
http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/04/enterprise-release-management-automated-deployments-and-the-big-iron/#commentsTue, 22 Apr 2014 20:43:58 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=4221I’m not a golfer but every golfer has their favorite, most dependable iron. In Enterprise IT, its the mainframe. The mainframe has lasted over 50 years because of its resilience, dependability and because it just runs! The problem is that if you mention the word “Mainframe” to most IT professionals today their eyes glaze over and they get totally confused when terms like CICS, IMS or ISPF are mentioned. Deploying composite apps that have mainframe artifacts is currently an art reserved for the highly skilled. Serena Software recently held its quarterly Mainframe Virtual User Group and gave a demo on how Serena Release Manager’s Deployment Hub automates ChangeMan ZMF package deployments from a simple, easy-to-use graphical editor. Something any duffer like myself can do at a moment’s notice!
]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/04/enterprise-release-management-automated-deployments-and-the-big-iron/feed/0Serena’s Ownership Change is Completehttp://www.serena.com/blog/2014/04/serenas-ownership-change-is-complete/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=serenas-ownership-change-is-complete
http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/04/serenas-ownership-change-is-complete/#commentsMon, 21 Apr 2014 19:00:00 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=4277Right on schedule, we closed the sale of Serena Software to the partnership of private equity firm HGGC and Serena founder Doug Troxel.

Since the announcement of the acquisition on March 10th, I’ve spoken with many customers and prospective customers about our new financial partners, and everyone is excited and positive about the transition. HGGC seized the opportunity to invest with Doug Troxel because they believe in Serena’s strategy and our opportunities ahead. Our customers see this investment of smart new money as a strong validation that we’re on the right track.

I’m personally very excited about this new chapter for Serena and firmly believe that the best is yet to come. I am looking forward to working with Doug Troxel and our new board members from HGGC, Rich Lawson, Steve Young and Hudson Smith.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/04/serenas-ownership-change-is-complete/feed/0Serena’s response to the Heartbleed bughttp://www.serena.com/blog/2014/04/serenas-response-to-the-heartbleed-bug/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=serenas-response-to-the-heartbleed-bug
http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/04/serenas-response-to-the-heartbleed-bug/#commentsTue, 15 Apr 2014 22:12:18 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=4215As most of you know, a security flaw has been discovered in the popular OpenSSL cryptographic software library that is used by up to two thirds of the internet. There is no evidence that Serena or your data has been compromised in any way. More information is available on the OpenSSL website at https://www.openssl.org/, where you can read their security advisory.

Our engineering team has analyzed Serena Business Manager, Dimensions CM, Dimensions RM, PVCS Version Manager, ChangeMan DS and our Mainframe products and have determined they are not at risk.

In order to further protect our On-Demand customers, we re-applied all SSL certificates and updated all cores and data centers for our SaaS environment on Friday, April 11th. Out of an abundance of caution, we recommend On-Demand customers who are not using Single Sign-On (SSO) change their passwords and require users to create a new password at the next logon.

If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact one of my customer support professionals. Contact details are available at http://support.serena.com.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/04/serenas-response-to-the-heartbleed-bug/feed/0Orchestrating the tip of the spear at the DefenceIT conferencehttp://www.serena.com/blog/2014/04/orchestrating-the-tip-of-the-spear-at-the-defenceit-conference/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=orchestrating-the-tip-of-the-spear-at-the-defenceit-conference
http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/04/orchestrating-the-tip-of-the-spear-at-the-defenceit-conference/#commentsTue, 15 Apr 2014 16:49:31 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=4203The annual DefenceIT conference concluded this week at the Defence Academy in the UK. More than 250 uniformed and civilian technology leaders gathered to talk about the intersection of business solutions and battlespace technology needs.

Defence spending reductions and the prospect of no active engagements beyond December 2014 are reshaping priorities in the UK Ministry of Defence. This is leading to rebrigading (reallocating brigades resources into fewer organizational units) which has the most immediate impact on the armed forces. However this has the potential to move the focus away from preparing for future mission profiles Her Majesty’s armed forces may be tasked to do.

The massive effort of repatriating war-fighters and their materiel from Afghanistan is well underway. However with billions of pounds worth of equipment and only a few months to complete the redeployment before winter comes, the logistical complexity is huge. Ensuring that vital, sensitive and strategic materials are shipped with priority and shipped securely is just as much of a challenge as shipping the more mundane. The added complexity of an uncertain outcome to the current Afghan elections brings a special frissance to the expression “mission critical.”

Serena’s presence once again underscored our commitment to supporting our military uniformed and civilian customers as well as our defence contractor partners. Just like our business customers, the pace of change and the imperative for compliance has reached the point where failure is not an option. Technology underpins both peacetime and wartime effectiveness. Our solutions are used today to manage fighter configurations, provide rapid deployment of helicopter spare parts in the theatre of operations, manage development and deployment of software applications by security services and more. Serena is proud to support the men and women serving around the world who keep the peace and establish global security.

If you have stories around how technology is helping make the world a safer, more secure place, please share in the comments.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/04/orchestrating-the-tip-of-the-spear-at-the-defenceit-conference/feed/0Where are you with Continuous Delivery in the Enterprise?http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/04/where-are-you-with-continuous-delivery-in-the-enterprise/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=where-are-you-with-continuous-delivery-in-the-enterprise
http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/04/where-are-you-with-continuous-delivery-in-the-enterprise/#commentsThu, 10 Apr 2014 17:16:13 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=4168Whenever the words “Continuous Delivery” and “Enterprise IT” are used in the same sentence it rapidly turns into a page or at least a paragraph. That is because “Enterprise IT” generally means a big, diverse set of heterogeneous infrastructures glued together across many teams and locations that use many different tools and processes to develop and deploy software. Each enterprise has its own unique DNA that has organically evolved through generations of applications and technologies with its own historic set of artifacts and processes that have weathered the storms of innovation.

Continuous Delivery’s goal is to find ways to deliver high-quality, valuable software in an efficient, fast and reliable manner. It’s an effective pattern for getting software from development to release. However, mapping a set of automated deployment pipelines across an entire enterprise can be challenging and in many instances may take years to achieve or may never happen completely. Does that mean you should not start implementing Continuous Delivery? Absolutely not. Continuous Delivery is an ideal, an end state with continuous improvement every step along the way. This is something we are going to discuss at the next DevOps Drive-in Webinar. Don’t miss out! Sign up for “Achieving Continuous Delivery in the Enterprise, powered by Serena and CloudBees” today.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/04/where-are-you-with-continuous-delivery-in-the-enterprise/feed/0Preview Serena Software’s Newest Change and Configuration Management Solutionhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2014/03/preview-serena-softwares-newest-change-and-configuration-management-solution/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=preview-serena-softwares-newest-change-and-configuration-management-solution
http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/03/preview-serena-softwares-newest-change-and-configuration-management-solution/#commentsThu, 27 Mar 2014 16:28:01 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=4149Modernizing the application development and delivery lifecycle is top of mind for many organizations as they seek ways to meet the increasing demands for new applications and services. With speed and business alignment remaining the top app dev priorities in 2014 (see my blog post on this topic), we see a re-emergence in the importance of application change and configuration management, the adoption of modern development practices, and the visibility and transparency into the health and quality of application development deliverables.

Preview Program members have had the opportunity to influence and contribute to product designs through Special Interest Groups, and track and validate implementation through regular product demonstrations from R&D. This has been a remarkable journey for our product development team and our Preview & Beta program members. We’ve been delighted with the contribution and feedback from so many customers.

Among the many innovative capabilities in the upcoming Dimensions CM release are:

The ability to graphically show the health and quality of changesets within development streams (screenshot above).

The ability to make informed decisions based on the status of CI builds and unit tests.

A seamlessly integrated collaborative peer review.

An intuitive developer experience.

As one of our Preview members stated upon seeing a preview of Dimensions CM 14 Beta 3:

“The visibility enables you to see if you are converging to quality or diverging from quality.”

Any SCM or Development practitioner will immediately recognize the value of simplicity over complexity, health and quality over failed builds and merges, and visibility and transparency over siloed tools and processes.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/03/preview-serena-softwares-newest-change-and-configuration-management-solution/feed/0Seven Habits of Highly Effective DevOpshttp://www.serena.com/blog/2014/03/seven-habits-of-highly-effective-devops/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=seven-habits-of-highly-effective-devops
http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/03/seven-habits-of-highly-effective-devops/#commentsThu, 20 Mar 2014 20:26:29 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=4125Glenn O’Donnell, Principal Analyst at Forrester paid a visit to Serena Software headquarters in San Mateo, CA this week and joined us for our monthly DevOps Drive-In webcast. IT is in its own industrial revolution according to Glenn, in part because IT is currently too slow, has poor quality and customers don’t trust IT. This revolution requires an IT fitness program and not a weight loss program where IT becomes stronger, faster and more resilient. To improve quickly, IT needs to embrace Lean principles and methodologies.

Glenn provided an overview of how IT can leverage Lean value stream mapping and the DevOps principles of automation and culture to eliminate waste, increase quality and reduce cycle times. He also outlined the “Seven Habits of Highly Effective DevOps.” These habits are:

Establish common values and awareness across a common Dev and Ops community.

Take an “outside in” approach to everything.

Automate your build, testing and release management processes.

Standardize the services and the components used to build these services.

Instill a culture of systems engineering across Dev and Ops.

Implement feedback and feed-forward in the service lifecycle.

Put developers on the front line of service support.

During the webinar, we polled attendees and asked them to select which of the seven habits they thought would be the highest priority to improve their organization. Below is a graph of the results.

The majority believes automation and establishing common values and awareness between Dev and Ops would provide the most improvement to their organization. I was surprised having developers on the front line of service support and implementing feedback loops scored so low. Changing the culture is harder to do but I do like the DevOps principle of shared accountability and the “If I’m awake, you are awake” mentality. If an operations person gets woken up early in the morning, the responsible developer should work alongside them until the problem is resolved. You would get faster MTTR and improve reliability and quality.

It was a great DevOps Drive-in. Thanks goes to Glenn and Forrester. Make sure you catch our next DevOps Drive-in webcast on April 23rd. We are teaming up with Cloudbees to discuss the challenges of Enterprise Continuous Delivery.

This is particularly rewarding because the feedback and ratings are based solely on a random selection of our customers around the world, throughout the year. Not only did Serena earn this award last year but this marks the seventh year that we have earned this high honour.

Receiving third party recognition proves our ongoing commitment to building long-term customer loyalty by delivering a high quality customer experience, way beyond just technical support. The comments we receive directly drive improvements in our communication and support processes, ensuring we go well beyond supporting our customers…to delighting them! For more information about the award, see the press release.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/03/serena-software-wins-northface-scoreboard-award-for-seventh-time/feed/0Using a DevOps Compass with an ITIL Maphttp://www.serena.com/blog/2014/03/using-a-devops-compass-with-an-itil-map/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=using-a-devops-compass-with-an-itil-map
http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/03/using-a-devops-compass-with-an-itil-map/#commentsMon, 17 Mar 2014 16:49:27 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=4084A couple of weeks ago I had an opportunity to attend Pink14, Pink Elephant’s ITIL conference, and DevOps Day LA in the same week. What an experience in contrasts. The ITIL crowd was made up of incident, service and release managers focused on process improvements to manage IT and mitigate risk. The DevOps crowd was system administrators in charge of moving the bits from development to production. It was all about speed, quality and revolution with the Sys Admins. While initially the differences were night and day, the more I listened to these very different groups, the more I saw an incredible opportunity and the need for both of these different views of managing IT to interlock and work more closely.

The ITIL V3 set of manuals is now 1900 pages, across 5 volumes and weighs 15 pounds. ITIL needs to lean out, optimize and leverage the DevOps Principles of Culture, Lean, Automation, Measurement and Sharing (CLAMS). ITIL is not moving fast enough and IT is still struggling! DevOps is just starting to catch the attention of the ITIL crowd. Serena Software was one of the few vendors evangelizing DevOps for the enterprise ITIL crowd. I actually gave a presentation on the subject to a full house. You can view the presentation here. So, there is a lot of interest from the ITIL folks on how we can move faster, be leaner and still manage risk.

In order for DevOps to work in the enterprise, the DevOps movement needs to provide practical and pragmatic ways to integrate and evolve the current enterprise culture, processes and infrastructure. It’s about going from point A to B. That is the challenge. Not sure you will be able to burn down the silos, at least not short term. I’ve seen people try and it’s very expensive. It has to be more about evolution, not revolution, and ITIL could provide the map or blueprint for that evolution.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/03/using-a-devops-compass-with-an-itil-map/feed/1A Win-Win For HGGC and Serena Softwarehttp://www.serena.com/blog/2014/03/a-win-win-for-hggc-and-serena-software/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=a-win-win-for-hggc-and-serena-software
http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/03/a-win-win-for-hggc-and-serena-software/#commentsWed, 12 Mar 2014 21:23:58 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=4060The picture to the right just about sums up how the HGGC and Serena teams and I were feeling right after we announced the ownership change at Serena Software – sheer excitement for what’s to come. As you may have read earlier in the week in a press release, private equity firm HGGC and I have partnered to acquire Serena. The deal brings me full circle.

I founded Serena Consulting in 1980 with the express purpose of being a contract programmer at Bank of America in San Francisco. It was just me. I had no large aspirations other than making a living but then I got the urge to enhance this little utility I had written previously to compare files. I found that many wanted to use it. That was the kernel of knowledge I needed to take the idea of writing software for the masses. That utility was Comparex and it funded the company, renamed Serena Software, for hiring people and developing other products. We did NOT need venture capital.

We took the company public in 1999 and Silver Lake Partners took us private in 2006. Now that I have the opportunity to buy the company back with the assistance of HGGC, I am thrilled to play a larger role in the company strategy. Our CEO, Greg Hughes, has streamlined the company to put our expenses in line with revenue. We are now positioned to focus on the people and products that will put us into growth mode over the coming years. HGGC is just down Highway 101 from us. I have high hopes this will be a win-win situation for both companies. Below is a picture of the HGGC and Serena management teams.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/03/a-win-win-for-hggc-and-serena-software/feed/1What Serena’s Ownership Change Means for Youhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2014/03/what-serenas-ownership-change-means-for-you/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=what-serenas-ownership-change-means-for-you
http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/03/what-serenas-ownership-change-means-for-you/#commentsMon, 10 Mar 2014 13:30:27 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=4047I am pleased to announce that Serena has entered into a definitive agreement to transition the ownership of the company to a partnership of HGGC and Serena founder Doug Troxel. HGGC is a California-based private equity firm that focuses on investing in mid-market technology companies with strong technology, revenue and customers. They have an outstanding record of helping businesses reach their full growth potential.

Doug Troxel will continue as a board member and HGGC’s CEO and co-founder Rich Lawson will join as Chairman. I am excited to continue to work with Doug and to welcome the smart and successful partners from HGGC into the Serena family. My management team and the Serena employees you know today will continue with the company.

This is an important announcement for the company as it reaffirms Serena’s strategy of developing and delivering market leading solutions that increase the value of IT to the business. We will continue to deliver innovation on our core products and invest in the emerging DevOps and release management market. We will continue to offer the world-class customer support for which our customers are accustomed. And, we will continue to put our customers at the center of everything we do.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/03/what-serenas-ownership-change-means-for-you/feed/2Supporting the IBM Mainframe for More Than 30 Yearshttp://www.serena.com/blog/2014/03/supporting-the-ibm-mainframe-for-more-than-30-years/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=supporting-the-ibm-mainframe-for-more-than-30-years
http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/03/supporting-the-ibm-mainframe-for-more-than-30-years/#commentsMon, 03 Mar 2014 18:15:21 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=4007On April 7, 2014, IBM will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the mainframe, marking an incredible achievement. In what some consider the biggest business gamble of all time, International Business Machines invested $5 billion ($35 billion in today’s dollars) in a family of six mutually compatible computers and 40 peripherals that could work together and be expanded in multiple combinations. Big Blue ended up adding 60,000 employees and 5 new major plants to support this new system. It has been the most important product announcement in the history of IBM.

In an industry where change and disruption happens every couple of years, the mainframe’s resiliency and continued evolution has both confounded industry experts (remember Stewart Alsop’s 1991 quote[1]) and validated the wisdom of the world’s leading businesses that continue to invest and run their core businesses on IBM’s Big Iron, the gold standard of Enterprise Computing.

The IBM mainframe played an important role in early core banking systems, the first airlines reservations system, and even the Apollo missions to the moon. Applications written for the early mainframes can still run today on the newest mainframe hardware and operating systems. This backwards compatibility, which is unique in the industry, has enabled large enterprise companies to continue to derive value from past investment in application development.

Today, IBM has continued to evolve the mainframe, which is now used for cloud, big data, mobile, and social computing workloads. With its high availability and secure platform, the mainframe processes the majority of the world’s business transactions and stores the majority of the world’s business data.

Serena Software and the IBM Mainframe

Serena Software has a key place in the history of the IBM mainframe. Serena has been supporting the largest mainframe customers for over 30 years. Serena was founded in 1980 by Doug Troxel. Doug is still working on special technology projects as an active member of the mainframe development team, and he serves on our board of directors.

From the very beginning, the solutions we’ve developed have a common theme – change. We detect change, replicate it, prevent it, log it, control it, merge it, approve it, version it, and package it. We synchronize change, track it, audit and report on it, set alerts for it, make dashboards of it, deploy it, release it, and back it out when needed.

Our first product, Comparex, was designed to compare two data sources and highlight the differences. This is critical in all mainframe production environments for checking that changes have been applied correctly. From flat files to VSAM, DB2 and IMS, z/FS, HFS, and even XML data streams and AES encrypted files, Comparex compares “anything to anything.”

Our second product is now the company’s flagship solution, ChangeMan ZMF. Recognized by industry analysts at Gartner, Forrester, Ovum, and others as the leading solution for Software Change and Configuration Management (SCCM) on the mainframe, ZMF is the heart of the development infrastructure for more than 90 of the Fortune 100 companies. Without ZMF, many household name businesses would not be able to meet their compliance and governance audits.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/03/supporting-the-ibm-mainframe-for-more-than-30-years/feed/0Serena Software and QualityPark Collaborate on Requirements Management Solutionhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2014/02/serena-software-and-qualitypark-collaborate-on-requirements-management-solution/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=serena-software-and-qualitypark-collaborate-on-requirements-management-solution
http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/02/serena-software-and-qualitypark-collaborate-on-requirements-management-solution/#commentsThu, 27 Feb 2014 21:58:45 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=3991I am pleased to announce that we have entered into a partnership agreement with QualityPark (QP), a Serena requirements management partner for over 10 years. Under this agreement, QualityPark will assume software development for Dimensions RM, Serena’s Requirements Management product, and its companion product, Prototype Composer.

This is excellent news for our customers who will benefit not only from QP’s extensive expertise in the Requirements Management market but also their domain knowledge in embedded software, automotive & aviation industries, and the financial, banking & insurance industries. They have a broad footprint in Europe and US with a strong business presence in complex, highly regulated and standards-driven organizations across the globe.

Serena and QP are already collaborating on the next generation of Dimensions RM. Stay tuned for the exciting direction we’re taking the product! In the meantime, feel free to post any questions you have in the Comments section below.

Assessment: knowing where you are and want to go is always a good thing. During the webinar, I asked Bola about measures (of success) and supported my question with an observation made during numerous prospect and customer visits. Oftentimes, companies are focused on doing the right things but cannot always articulate what success looks like. You should be able to concisely, and objectively, tell your boss how you have been successful. A simple example would be, “We’ve been able to reduce the total time spent by our release team deploying software into the Integrated Test environment by 45%.”

Commitment: “A commitment to Business Agility must be comprehensive.” I choose to read this a couple of ways. First, the organization must be committed to change. Your boss and his/her boss must be regularly asking you, “How’s it going? We’re under pressure to improve operational efficiency and our responsiveness to the business.” Second, the various stakeholders (development, operations, service delivery, etc.) must have a common measure of success, preferably with some portion of their bonus dependent on achievement of a goal.

Automation: As I stated during the webinar, and as I do when visiting our customers, the most immediate “place” to start is replacing manual deployment steps with automated application release automation. Assuming you have the commitment of management (see #2), you can easily and quickly demonstrate success that is in alignment with your destination (see #1).

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/02/3-key-drivers-to-continuous-delivery-in-the-enterprise/feed/0Release Management, DevOps, and the Winter Olympicshttp://www.serena.com/blog/2014/02/release-management-devops-and-the-winter-olympics/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=release-management-devops-and-the-winter-olympics
http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/02/release-management-devops-and-the-winter-olympics/#commentsFri, 14 Feb 2014 22:23:36 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=3965First, a confession: I am an Olympics junkie. While running on my treadmill early this morning, I found myself watching the Sweden-Switzerland hockey game. During the break between periods 1 and 2, the broadcast team turned their attention to the growing story of how the US speed skaters have not won a medal, when they were expected to do so many times. The reason, currently in circulation, is the new suits they are wearing. These suits — designed by a well-known sports apparel company, in partnership with a well-known aerospace giant – were supposed to reduce the drag encountered as the skaters traveled around the rink at speeds above 30 MPH. It seems the opposite might be happening.

However, this is not what got me thinking and, ultimately, writing this blog. While I had heard the “it’s the new suits” story several times, I learned for the first time this morning that these suits had not been tested in competition prior to the Olympics. Really? Common sense says that at least the US team would have tested these suits in a closed practice session with the stop watch firmly in the hands of the coaches before the Olympics. The fact that people were actually surprised that the suits degraded performance is … surprising.

So how does this relate to Release Management and DevOps? This story sounds a lot like situations where development is able to release changes directly into production, without any governance or separation of duties. In the Olympics situation, and if my ruminations are somewhat accurate, “development” is likely the business development people for team USA who signed a lucrative contract and, quite possibly, injected a change directly into production (the skaters) without much governance (stop watches, or user acceptance testing at competitive events leading up to the Olympics).

Serena Software can help you safely accelerate your need to inject software changes into production. For more, see information about Serena Release Manager.

Some final thoughts. Wrapping this up … I am all for beating the competition within the established rules. Team USA is now trying to change their suits. IMO, they should be denied this request. While rollbacks are fair game for software deployments, the US speed skaters need to live with their high-stakes gamble.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/02/release-management-devops-and-the-winter-olympics/feed/0The Advantages of Delivering Smaller Batch Sizes in the Enterprisehttp://www.serena.com/blog/2014/02/the-advantages-of-delivering-smaller-batch-sizes-in-the-enterprise/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-advantages-of-delivering-smaller-batch-sizes-in-the-enterprise
http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/02/the-advantages-of-delivering-smaller-batch-sizes-in-the-enterprise/#commentsFri, 14 Feb 2014 17:34:22 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=3938It’s been years since agile methodologies went mainstream. Recently, with DevOps and Continuous Delivery/Deployment, we are now able to work in an agile way from Dev right through to Ops, instead of just Dev and Test working in an agile manner. I am constantly surprised when I hear of organizations not using their new found agility to reduce batch sizes and deliver smaller amounts of quality functionality more frequently. Also, I often hear about companies who keep their release cycles long and try to put more into a release. I’m sure we have all experienced big software releases with many issues, either as people involved in the project or as users.

I’m aware that many of you reading this may be thinking, “This guy doesn’t get it. We work with legacy code; the components are tightly coupled” or “Our customers don’t want frequent changes; they like less frequent large updates.”

I’ve worked in environments where these arguments could be made and I understand from a customer point of view that frequent change could be a bad thing. As a customer of enterprise software, I have valued stability, avoiding major changes that would result in planning how to train users of new software versions frequently. After all, people are employed to do a job, not to spend hours learning how to use a tool over and over again.

A good example of this would be UX redesign. If there are frequent changes that fundamentally change the way users interact with a system and require user training, then of course there will be complaints about frequent changes. The easy way out would be to deliver these types of changes in one large batch instead of delivering many small changes over time. This loses the advantages of agile development and introduces unnecessary risk.

A better way would be feature flags allowing code to be enabled or disabled and changes continuously merged into a codebase. This isn’t revolutionary; people have been doing it for years and have delivered high quality code in incremental pieces without a big bang integration at the end. With a bit of forward planning and refactoring code, it is possible for functionality to be delivered incrementally, even in legacy codebases and on a customer-by-customer basis. This will allow you to get new features out to your customers and prospects and be even more competitive.

There are a growing number of examples of this and while I won’t be at DevOpsDay LA on Febriary 21st, there is an excellent session I would really like to attend. Jody Mulkey of Ticketmaster will present a session called “Legacy is not an excuse: DevOps success in the enterprise.” Jody will present on re-architecting Ticketmaster’s decades-old ticketing platform. I’m hoping it will be a solid example of how changes can be made in smaller batch sizes in the enterprise.

The time when delivering changes in big batch sizes is coming to an end. Can your organization afford to be one of the last to make the move to smaller batch sizes? If you are evaluating changes to tools or processes, I believe it is wise to assume that delivering code in smaller batch sizes much more frequently is coming sooner rather than later. IF you aren’t delivering small batches of changes frequently now and aren’t planning to do so in the near future, at least design new systems or implement new processes and tools with these principals in mind. You will be glad you did sooner than you think!

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/02/the-advantages-of-delivering-smaller-batch-sizes-in-the-enterprise/feed/1Register for Live Webcast on Continuous Delivery in the Enterprisehttp://www.serena.com/blog/2014/02/register-for-live-webcast-on-continuous-delivery-in-the-enterprise/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=register-for-live-webcast-on-continuous-delivery-in-the-enterprise
http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/02/register-for-live-webcast-on-continuous-delivery-in-the-enterprise/#commentsTue, 11 Feb 2014 18:58:15 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=3926So you think you have an excuse not to practice continuous delivery…

The question I have for you is: why stop at DevOps? Call me crazy but I think this whole “Continuous Delivery” thing sounds like an exciting adventure that could very well bring you fame and fortune in your organization. Ok, so the fortune part might be an exaggeration but hopefully you get my point.

On February 19th at 9am PST we’ll be discussing Continuous Delivery with Bola Rotibi of Creative Intellect Consulting. Bola is the author of a report on Continuous Delivery and why it is applicable and important to people like you!

I’m a big believer in having a small set of key takeaways from a webinar. So, in a nutshell here are three key things we will distill about Continuous Delivery:

Key challenges for adopting Continuous Delivery

Attributers and inhibitors to Continuous Delivery in enterprise

Top guide points for enterprises

We hope you will join us for the webcast and that by the end of it you’ll be thinking of lots of fun ways to bring Continuous Delivery into your organization.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/02/register-for-live-webcast-on-continuous-delivery-in-the-enterprise/feed/1What Is Your Continuous Delivery Strategy?http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/02/what-is-your-continuous-delivery-strategy/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=what-is-your-continuous-delivery-strategy
http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/02/what-is-your-continuous-delivery-strategy/#commentsMon, 10 Feb 2014 16:30:42 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=3910Last week Microsoft introduced their new CEO, Satya Nadell. I always like to read the “memo to the employees” from a new CEO. It’s interesting to hear what inspires and motivates new CEOs and how they frame the mission and vision. Mr. Nadell states: “This is a software powered world” and “that software enables businesses to engage customers in more meaningful ways.” In order to achieve this, businesses require IT to deliver a competitive advantage, not once a year, but on a continuous rolling basis.

While new companies such as Amazon.com, Etsy and Facebook have designed and delivered a “Continuous Delivery” practice, they have been largely free and unencumbered from legacy processes, platforms and environments. Large traditional enterprises are not so lucky and require a strategy that transforms the legacy development and operational processes, methodologies and tools that support the complex hybrid infrastructure environments and platforms that are unique to the enterprise.

Continuous Delivery is a competitive advantage because it puts the release schedule in the hands of the business, not in the hands of IT. Getting there for the enterprise is a journey and requires a strategy. Join us on February 19 for a live webcast with Bola Rotibi, CIC Consulting’s Research Director. She will discuss the key challenges of achieving continuous delivery in the enterprise. Learn more and register!

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/02/what-is-your-continuous-delivery-strategy/feed/0Speed and Business Alignment Remain the Top App Dev Priorities in 2014http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/02/speed-and-business-alignment-remain-the-top-app-dev-priorities-in-2014/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=speed-and-business-alignment-remain-the-top-app-dev-priorities-in-2014
http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/02/speed-and-business-alignment-remain-the-top-app-dev-priorities-in-2014/#commentsWed, 05 Feb 2014 19:50:09 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=3868If 2013 was the year to get down to business, 2014 is the year to wake up and deliver. However, it’s not so much that app dev priorities or resolutions have changed; it’s their importance and focus on execution and delivery that is more critical than ever. No surprise that this fact continues to hold true: delivering applications faster to the business is still the #1 application development priority for 2014.

At the Gartner AADI Summit in December 2013, Serena surveyed IT executives about their top application development and delivery priorities for the coming year and discovered some notable results:

56% of respondents confirmed that faster delivery of applications is the top priority.

Better alignment with business needs and developing mobile apps were the second and third highest priorities, coming in 54% and 51% respectively.

Expanding the use of Agile was very closely behind at 50%.

We found that the priority “Continuously Deliver Apps” grew in importance the fastest (up 17%), followed by “Develop Mobile Apps” and “Standardize Our Methodology,” both of which recorded a 15% increase since 2012. A slight decline was seen in the importance of delivering applications faster, suggesting the focus is moving to execution of the top priorities.

Another interesting discovery was the significant increase in the adoption and importance of 4 key App Dev initiatives:

Managing application development as a business process

Having end to end traceability from the business request to production release

Providing a centralized or federated repository for all artifacts

Integrating all of the different tools in the application development and delivery process

While most software development delivery teams increasingly embrace agile, mobile, big data and cloud within the application strategies and portfolios, the biggest challenge for respondents is finding a way to define and deliver software faster and better while aligning with the business, market and customer needs.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/02/speed-and-business-alignment-remain-the-top-app-dev-priorities-in-2014/feed/2DevOps Will Not Replace Opshttp://www.serena.com/blog/2014/01/devops-will-not-replace-ops/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=devops-will-not-replace-ops
http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/01/devops-will-not-replace-ops/#commentsThu, 30 Jan 2014 20:24:18 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=3850There are times when I hear things about DevOps which just don’t seem to make much sense. Sometimes the statements are quite destructive and, in my opinion, make Dev and Ops collaboration so much harder.

Recently, I heard yet again that DevOps will result in Dev taking over Ops responsibilities, essentially reducing the need for people in Ops. I don’t agree. The role of staff in both development and operations is changing. Operations staff are more likely to have development skills and spend more time automating tasks. If you think about it, this makes sense. Giving developers self service access isn’t about giving up control. In order to give self service access, the controls will still be in place. But, instead of being done each time by a human gatekeeper in operations, the control will have been implemented in processes and automation managed by people who were once gatekeepers in operations.

Operations is a very specialized role. The tasks Operations staff work on are not so trivial that they can be simply handled by any developer. If anything, I see the role of operations becoming even more important in the future.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/01/devops-will-not-replace-ops/feed/1Analyst Review of Serena Release Manager v5http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/01/analyst-review-of-serena-release-manager-v5/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=analyst-review-of-serena-release-manager-v5
http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/01/analyst-review-of-serena-release-manager-v5/#commentsMon, 27 Jan 2014 17:57:50 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=3830 Serena Software released Serena Release Manager v5 back in December and I blogged a brief overview of the features and functions of the release and how it can help organizations start to transform their culture and begin to support the main principles of DevOps. The results ultimately need to transform into improving operational efficiencies and being more responsive to the business. We have seen customers improve the speed of software delivery by 3x and at the same time improve their quality by 75% with the same resources available. CIC (Creative Intellect Consulting) has also provided us a product spotlight on Serena Release Manager v5. You can get their perspective right here.
]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/01/analyst-review-of-serena-release-manager-v5/feed/03 Tips to Get Started with DevOps in the Enterprisehttp://www.serena.com/blog/2014/01/3-tips-to-get-started-with-devops-in-the-enterprise/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=3-tips-to-get-started-with-devops-in-the-enterprise
http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/01/3-tips-to-get-started-with-devops-in-the-enterprise/#commentsThu, 23 Jan 2014 17:03:08 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=3814The DevOps Drive-In FAQ webcast with Gene Kim was a great success. As usual, Gene provided a huge amount of valuable information. I came out of the webcast feeling even more positive about the future of DevOps, which will surprise some people as I’m sure they didn’t think I could become more enthusiastic.

There were a lot of excellent questions which may well inspire future blog posts, but for now I’ll reiterate my thoughts on three tips to get started with DevOps from the ground level.

Determine what outcomes you want to achieve and how to measure them.

Run a pilot project. You don’t need to adopt new processes all the way to production. Even in pre-production environments the value could be huge. Over time take your new processes all the way to production but don’t get hung up on not being able to go to production.

Accept that there will be failures. Learning how to recover from failure quickly rather than focusing on adding more and more layers of process and approvals will help reduce risk and let you deliver value to your customers faster.

For those of you who missed the webcast you can view the recording here.

Finally, a big thank you to Gene. It’s always a pleasure chatting with you.

I look forward to seeing you all again at the next DevOps Drive-In!

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/01/3-tips-to-get-started-with-devops-in-the-enterprise/feed/2Serena ChangeMan ZMF’s ERO Option Saves Time and Resourceshttp://www.serena.com/blog/2014/01/serena-changeman-zmfs-ero-option-saves-time-and-resources/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=serena-changeman-zmfs-ero-option-saves-time-and-resources
http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/01/serena-changeman-zmfs-ero-option-saves-time-and-resources/#commentsThu, 23 Jan 2014 00:56:34 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=3800In our recent Mainframe Virtual User Group (VUG) meeting, guest speaker, Westaedt CEO and Chief Architect Benny Westaedt discussed “How ChangeMan ZMF’s ERO option saves you resources and money.” Benny stepped our audience through the Enterprise Release Option (ERO) of ChangeMan ZMF and made a very compelling case for how ERO does save time and resources in a manner that was accessible to all technical levels and easily understood by those with or without actual ERO experience. If you missed the presentation, you can listen to the recording.

We had some great questions from users that I wanted to highlight:

Q: How does ERO integrate into the Client Pack offering?

A: The ZMF 7.2 Client Pack, including zDD and our Eclipse offering, ZMF4ECL, will support ERO. Both the XML and Web Services for ERO have been around for some time, but we are now formalizing support for the Client Pack in 7.2. Two other things worth noting: 1) our developers, like most developers, prefer off-platform environments like zDD and Eclipse, and 2) our developers also use ERO as part of our own production environment, so we feel the pain as well. The team is excited to get this out to you later this year.

Q: You refer to release packages. Are these the same or how do they differ from those in Serena Release Manager?

A: These are different. In the context of the presentation, release packages are base ZMF, simple, planned packages. In Serena Release Manager, release packages are defined as “…a portion of IT or service infrastructure normally built, deployed, tested, and released together. Release packages define the set of changes to be deployed and drive the deployment processes. One or more development change requests and deployment units (i.e. ZMF packages) are associated with each release package…”

Q: Can you have an unplanned/emergency release?

A: No. Releases, by their nature, are planned.

Q: Does ERO replace or complement ZMF base product functionality?

A: Complement. All additional ERO controls covered in the presentation are added to the existing, base CMN ZMF functionality. Some ERO functions may take precedence. For example, release audit is designed to cater for products developed within the defined release structure and is very much the primary audit mechanism for such an environment. However, package audit is still available in such a situation to perform limited functions.

During the VUG, we also mentioned that we’re looking for beta testers for ChangeMan ZMF 7.2, which is scheduled to become generally available later this year. It contains some very compelling new features, enhancements and currency support. We need your help in ensuring the highest quality in this release. Please contact David Jackson if you have questions or are interested in participating.

Our next Mainframe VUG is scheduled for April 16. Stay tuned for registration information. Until then, keep an eye out for our new quarterly Mainframe newsletter, Serenade. The next issue will be available later this quarter. Read the current issue.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/01/serena-changeman-zmfs-ero-option-saves-time-and-resources/feed/1How a Financial Services Firm Centralized Their Release Management Processhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2014/01/how-a-financial-services-firm-centralized-their-release-management-process/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=how-a-financial-services-firm-centralized-their-release-management-process
http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/01/how-a-financial-services-firm-centralized-their-release-management-process/#commentsFri, 17 Jan 2014 17:28:33 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=3789Recently, I was talking to a financial services company during one of Serena’s DevOps Drive-In webcasts. It was a wonderful story of the evolution of a release process over time and the benefits that were realized.

The company went from having multiple teams that did release management in a slightly different way and communicating via email, to communicating changes via SharePoint, and finally having both the process layer and automation captured in a single solution based on Serena technology.

I’ve worked in a release team myself and I can totally relate to what was said in the webcast. Having multiple teams all doing things in a slightly different way is extremely inefficient and also encourages mistakes to be made. In my personal experience, when there are multiple releases coming out and I’m busy, tired and under pressure, it’s difficult to remember the slight variations from one product to the next.

I also understand the company’s idea of moving to SharePoint to help solve part of the problem. I seriously considered it but it is, at best, a loosely fitting Band-Aid, not a long term fix.

I’m sure you might have heard me say or write that automation alone isn’t enough. This webcast was a wonderful example of that. I could go on but it’s much more powerful for you to hear this from the customer. There are two versions of the recording, a short 12 minute version and the full recording. Both are well worth your time.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/01/how-a-financial-services-firm-centralized-their-release-management-process/feed/1Register for Live Webcast with DevOps Guru Gene Kimhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2014/01/devops-faq-with-gene-kim/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=devops-faq-with-gene-kim
http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/01/devops-faq-with-gene-kim/#commentsThu, 09 Jan 2014 22:05:19 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=3766DevOps author and researcher Gene Kim will be my guest speaker for the next DevOps Drive-In webcast on January 22. He will share his most frequently asked questions and likely tell us some great stories as he answers them.

Gene is the author of The Phoenix Project and has been studying high performing organizations for many years. For those of you who haven’t read the book: if you have worked anywhere remotely close to IT Operations, be prepared for a great read and maybe a little bit of PTSD as the memories come flooding back.

With so many people eager to share their DevOps stories with Gene, he has great insight into the DevOps movement and what it means for enterprises. I’m really looking forward to this event and hope you can join us. Register for the webcast!

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/01/devops-faq-with-gene-kim/feed/02-Minute Video of What DevOps Is All Abouthttp://www.serena.com/blog/2014/01/2-minute-video-of-what-devops-is-all-about/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=2-minute-video-of-what-devops-is-all-about
http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/01/2-minute-video-of-what-devops-is-all-about/#commentsMon, 06 Jan 2014 19:05:53 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=3750DevOps is something that is talked about frequently but what does it really mean? How would you react to the folowing statements and questions?

DevOps is new and revolutionary!

People been doing it for years, right?

DevOps practices work best in organizations that provide SaaS

DevOps is also for organizations that don’t do WebApps

Is it some kind of weird thing from Europe?

What if I said all of the above were at least partially true?

Now that you are suitably confused, you are in the right mental state for DevOps to be explained to you in Serena’s new two-minute DevOps video. Click on the image above and find out what it means to accelerate the application release process by bringing Development and IT Operations into wonderful harmony.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/01/2-minute-video-of-what-devops-is-all-about/feed/1Three DevOps Predictions for 2014http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/01/three-devops-predictions-for-2014/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=three-devops-predictions-for-2014
http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/01/three-devops-predictions-for-2014/#commentsThu, 02 Jan 2014 23:15:17 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=37372013 has been an exciting year in the evolution of the DevOps movement, and at Serena we predict even more exciting developments in 2014. Based on information collected from conferences across the globe and from our customers, we put forward three DevOps predictions for 2014:

Prediction 1: IT organizations realize that DevOps is more than just automating deployments.

At DevOps conferences worldwide there has been a strong emphasis on addressing culture, as well as automation, in order to be successful. Conversation is usually around CAMS, not AMS.

Culture

Automation

Measurement

Sharing

Outside of what I refer to as the “DevOps bubble,” when DevOps hits the mainstream, the Culture part of CAMS seems to get lost in translation and the focus is on Automation as the cure. I’ve seen a steady increase of enterprises participating in DevOps events. People are realizing that a successful DevOps initiative takes more than just automation…it also requires addressing the coordination, collaboration and trust amongst the teams that participate in the application lifecycle.

In 2014, enterprise IT organizations embarking on DevOps improvement initiatives will look for ways to address both the process and the people part of the application lifecycle.

Prediction 2: Industries that are traditionally slower to change will now lead in DevOps adoption.

We are noticing a lot of interest in DevOps from the financial services and retail industries, where enabling consumers with technology and evolving its capabilities quickly can be a significant competitive advantage. Competition is intense due to customer expectations. In order to be flexible enough to meet those needs and transform business, DevOps is key. Traditionally, these industries are seen as conservative and risk-averse. The risk they now face is not transforming their technology offerings quickly enough.

In 2014, look for exciting technology innovation from the financial services and retail industries as they increase their ability to deliver innovative services quickly and with less risk.

Prediction 3: Even more spectacular software release failures.

Even though they are necessary, fundamental changes made in the way large IT organizations are releasing software are bound to result in some high profile failures before the process gets totally under control. We’ve seen the BART system grind to a halt after a failed updated, Knight Capital go bankrupt from a bad release process and countless other notable failures. While we never want to see a failure that reflects badly on the technology industry, we expect some high profile glitches along the way to DevOps nirvana.

In 2014, keep an eye out for software release failures…these are likely from the enterprises that are pushing DevOps improvement initiatives the hardest!

What are your thoughts? Do you have any DevOps predictions of your own? I’ll circle back mid-year or so and see if my projections are on track to becoming reality in 2014. Happy New Year!

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/01/three-devops-predictions-for-2014/feed/2Announcing the Release of Serena PVCS Version Manager 8.5http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/01/announcing-the-release-of-serena-pvcs-version-manager-8-5/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=announcing-the-release-of-serena-pvcs-version-manager-8-5
http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/01/announcing-the-release-of-serena-pvcs-version-manager-8-5/#commentsThu, 02 Jan 2014 17:50:35 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=3729We’re proud to announce the Serena PVCS Version Manager 8.5 release. The updates ensure customers can continue to use PVCS with confidence while platform currency provides continued co-existence within their broader development tool ecosystem.

Below are the major highlights from the Serena PVCS Version Manager 8.5 release:

Serena PVCS Version Manager 8.5, along with the accompanying Readme, Release Notes and Documentation, can be downloaded from My Downloads under Serena Support.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2014/01/announcing-the-release-of-serena-pvcs-version-manager-8-5/feed/2DevOps and Continuous Delivery Beyond Cloud-Based Appshttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/12/devops-and-continuous-delivery-beyond-cloud-based-apps/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=devops-and-continuous-delivery-beyond-cloud-based-apps
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/12/devops-and-continuous-delivery-beyond-cloud-based-apps/#commentsFri, 27 Dec 2013 21:22:11 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=3716Earlier in December, Kurt Bittner, Principal Analyst at Forrester Research, Inc., participated in the December DevOps Drive-In webcast, “12 Ways of DevOps.” A couple of the “12 ways” were thought-provoking for me. When people talk about DevOps and Continuous Delivery, it is frequently in the context of applications that are hosted in the cloud and are relatively easy to iterate quickly.

Hypothesis-Driven Development

I find the idea of hypothesis-driven development extremely appealing but achieving this outside of cloud-based web apps would appear to be challenging. If you are fortunate to have a well-functioning, responsive customer advisory board, then it would appear that you are in relatively good shape to do hypothesis-driven development. Sure, it takes a bit more coordination and scheduling but it is certainly possible, albeit probably with a small sample size.

I’m hoping that as DevOps and related methodologies are practiced in more traditional environments, there will be good examples of how people have successfully managed to do hypothesis-driven development for legacy-packaged or on-premise applications.

Working in Small Batches

I have seen this become a problem even when a product is hosted in the cloud with one codebase for all customers. Just because code is in the cloud, doesn’t mean the codebase is structured in a way that can be worked on in small batches.

Even if you are able to work in small batches, unless these smaller batches are released frequently, then you really aren’t getting the benefit of fast user feedback on your product changes. Opportunities to mitigate risk are being missed. I’m hoping that during 2014 there will be more success stories around working with legacy apps in a way where getting fast user feedback to product changes is being done successfully on a large scale.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/12/devops-and-continuous-delivery-beyond-cloud-based-apps/feed/0Infrastructure as Codehttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/12/infrastructure-as-code/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=infrastructure-as-code
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/12/infrastructure-as-code/#commentsSat, 14 Dec 2013 01:15:19 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=3703In February, Infrastructure as Code takes center stage in Europe. On February 3rd and 4th in Gent Belgium there is a Configuration Management Camp. As expected the leading providers of infrastructure as code solutions will be there. There is a lot of innovation in this space and these solutions fit in nicely with Serena Release Manager. Those of you who follow the DevOps tools space might be wondering where Serena’s tools fit in with these solutions.

I recently watched a webcast by the Serena team in the UK. In the webcast Kevin shows how to use Chef Solo with Serena Release Manager v5 along with Serena’s automation module to configure a server and deploy an application to the server.

I have written previously about how I see these tools fitting into the Serena stack. In the run up to Configuration Management Camp EU I’d like to spend some time putting together a simple example of how to use one of the other configuration management solutions with Serena Release Manager v5 and blog about the experience. I’m considering:

Ansible

Chef

CFEngine

Puppet

SaltStack

If you have a preference for which of these you would like to see me use with Serena Release Manager email me at jthorpe (at) serena (dot) com and I’ll choose whichever has the most votes. By the end of the example you will have a clear understanding of why these tools compliment Serena Release Manager and are not a replacement for Application Release Automation.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/12/infrastructure-as-code/feed/0Others can see your release problem, why can’t you?http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/12/others-can-see-your-release-problem-why-cant-you/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=others-can-see-your-release-problem-why-cant-you
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/12/others-can-see-your-release-problem-why-cant-you/#commentsThu, 12 Dec 2013 18:04:11 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=3687I spent the past few days at the Gartner Data Center Conference in Las Vegas. While there, I got to show off Serena Release Manager v5, which was very well received. It was great to see how people reacted to our way of visualizing releases.

The people I talked to at the show, for the most part, had no control over release processes. I can only recall one person who didn’t believe their organization had release management challenges.

That got me thinking. If others in an organization can see obvious release management issues (often significant), why aren’t they being addressed with more urgency in many organizations we talk to? I’m guessing it’s because release management issues span multiple teams and that makes them hard to solve. It’s easier to ignore the issues until a major problem arises, such as the Knight Capital incident.

If you decide to address your release management problems head on, how do you know your initiatives have an impact?

While CAMS is associated with DevOps, it is essential to helping improve your release management processes. When demoing Serena Release Manager v5, I was easily able to demonstrate how we addressed all aspects of CAMS.

If you want to learn more about how Serena Release Manager v5 can help tackle your release management issues, please join us for our upcoming live demo webcast on Tuesday December 17th at 8am PST. You can sign up for the webcast here.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/12/others-can-see-your-release-problem-why-cant-you/feed/1Pace-Layered Application Strategy and Serena Release Managerhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/12/pace-layered-application-strategy-and-serena-release-manager/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=pace-layered-application-strategy-and-serena-release-manager
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/12/pace-layered-application-strategy-and-serena-release-manager/#commentsWed, 11 Dec 2013 23:43:54 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=3671Hello again from Las Vegas! Serena Software is a sponsor of the Gartner Data Center Conference and we are showcasing our recently-announced Serena Release Manager v5. Gartner interviewed over 200 CIOs in 2012 on the topic of DevOps and found that release management was the number one issue they face.

During lunch, I shared with Cameron the idea that Serena Release Manager v5 supports the concepts of Pace-Layered Application Strategy, out-of-the-box. We allow you to identify different release train types, with different lifecycles, and applications. We easily conceive of three overlapping Release Trains that accommodate the stable, slow to change applications of type “System of Record” (which may well exist on a mainframe), the “Systems of Differentiation” application type that change more frequently, but not as much as the rapidly changing “Systems of Innovation,” where new ideas are brought to market.

Cameron encouraged us to expand this idea and show how. I agreed. Stay tuned for details about a future webcast where we demonstrate how Serena Release Manager can support Gartner’s Pace-Layered Application Strategy.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/12/pace-layered-application-strategy-and-serena-release-manager/feed/0Dimensions CM 14 Reveals Change Visualization & Peer Reviews (part 2 of 2)http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/12/dimensions-cm-14-reveals-change-visualization-peer-reviews-part-2-of-2/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=dimensions-cm-14-reveals-change-visualization-peer-reviews-part-2-of-2
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/12/dimensions-cm-14-reveals-change-visualization-peer-reviews-part-2-of-2/#commentsWed, 11 Dec 2013 19:26:05 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=3654Welcome to part two of our blog series on change visualization and Peer Reviews (Click here to read part one). We’ll look at how peer reviews will help developers gain confidence in the release readiness of their work and be empowered to share best practices between peers.

With a focus on the developer experience in Dimensions CM 14, Serena believes that Peer Reviews can unlock the potential of team members to share their learning and encourage teamwork, without becoming a hindrance and burden to getting actual work done. We find that many organizations want to implement peer review, but struggle to find a good way to start. By streamlining this process within Dimensions CM we are making it accessible to development teams inside the tools that they use every day, making it easy for organizations to adopt this development best practice.

The integrated Peer Review feature optimizes your code review process, improves team collaboration and drives development efficiency and quality. Peer reviews are automatically created and assigned to the right developers, enabling efficient communication and collaboration using a configurable workflow. Reviewers are provided with a checklist to ensure that coding standards and regulatory compliance are achieved. CM’s approach to peer review emphasizes both collaborative team work and the promotion of your development best practices.

Peer Review is often provided by a tool that is separate from your change and configuration management software, leading to multiple tools/interfaces that your developers need to use. With the introduction of collaborative peer review as an integrated value added feature contained within Dimensions CM, we can seamlessly integrate peer reviews with the rest of the development process. When making decisions about the release readiness of code, access to peer review status within the IDE gives developers confidence as they move code through the development process.

We wanted to create a Peer Review user interface that was modern and social, making it easy for reviewers to exchange comments including screenshots, links, lists etc. But we also wanted to provide a high degree of process and control. So the rules around when a review can complete are highly configurable; a full audit trail is recorded and we even provide a review checklist of standards and compliance items to be completed during the review. This focus on process allows us to meet the needs of customers working in highly-regulated or lightweight environments in an accessible way.

The Dimensions CM 14 Beta 2 release is now available for those customers who’d like to try out the new Peer Review and/or Changesets features with opportunity to provide direct feedback. Simply email us by clicking here and we’ll send you the simple license agreement to complete before we send you links for the software download.

We also invite existing customers to join the Serena Dimensions CM 14 preview program. After registering your application to join this program, Serena will invite you to our various preview webinars and sneak peeks as we work our way towards final release in April 2014. Visit this link to register your interest:

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/12/dimensions-cm-14-reveals-change-visualization-peer-reviews-part-2-of-2/feed/0Key Messages from DevOps Presentation at Gartner Conferencehttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/12/key-messages-from-devops-presentation-at-gartner-conference/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=key-messages-from-devops-presentation-at-gartner-conference
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/12/key-messages-from-devops-presentation-at-gartner-conference/#commentsWed, 11 Dec 2013 02:48:17 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=3639Hello from Las Vegas! Serena Software is a sponsor at the Gartner Data Center Conference, happening now through December 12. We are showing our recently-announced Serena Release Manager v5 at our booth (pictured to right). Gartner interviewed over 200 CIOs in 2012 on the topic of DevOps; they said that release management was the number one issue they face.

While at the show, Jonathan Thorpe and I had the opportunity to attend a Monday session led by Ronni Colville and George Spafford, both from Gartner Research, titled “Leveraging DevOps for Scale.” Here are some of the key messages they delivered:

Release Management is the foundation for DevOps and a concept that must be mastered. (At Serena, we completely agree!)

When designing an enterprise release management process, the considerations are: be sure you understand who your key stakeholders are, establish shared metrics (Dev and Ops) to foster team work, and start on a prototype project to prove concepts (and in our view, for early success to establish momentum).

A shared understanding between Dev and Ops should be the ultimate goal of releasing software into production.

Application Release Automation (ARA) is a low hanging fruit. (Serena’s view is that ARA is necessary but not sufficient – you also need to focus on lifecycle processes.)

Support of release types is important, especially as you consider Gartner’s Pace Layered guidance. (Serena agrees and supports different release types out-of-the-box with Release Manager v5.)

A key challenge to implementing release management – integrations. (We agree. Serena does not believe in “rip-and-replace” but rather leveraging investments in existing tool chains.)

More coming soon from Las Vegas.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/12/key-messages-from-devops-presentation-at-gartner-conference/feed/0Serena Customer KRMC Optimizes Patient Care Through Automation of IT Processeshttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/12/serena-customer-krmc-optimizes-patient-care-through-automation-of-it-processes/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=serena-customer-krmc-optimizes-patient-care-through-automation-of-it-processes
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/12/serena-customer-krmc-optimizes-patient-care-through-automation-of-it-processes/#commentsTue, 10 Dec 2013 21:38:53 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=3627I love it when I hear how Serena Business Manager (SBM) can help automate tedious paper-based processes, increase visibility and transparency, and eliminate resource waste. There must be many examples of IT and business processes that can similarly benefit. So, in this holiday season of cheer, let’s give thanks to Kingman Regional Medical Center (KRMC) for showing us the way.

KRMC is a non-profit medical center (pictured above) that focuses on the work environment and continuous improvement so that they can provide the highest satisfaction to their patients. When their Capital Expenditure Process was bogging down staff and practitioners with manual processes and approvals, KRMC turned to Serena for an automated IT process solution.

Learn how this helped KRMC refocus on patient care and enabled Andrea Williams, a KRMC Business Analyst, to realize the benefits of IT process automation with the full support of her manager and CIO. Read the entire case study.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/12/serena-customer-krmc-optimizes-patient-care-through-automation-of-it-processes/feed/0The 12 Ways of DevOpshttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/12/the-12-ways-of-devops/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-12-ways-of-devops
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/12/the-12-ways-of-devops/#commentsSat, 07 Dec 2013 00:46:58 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=3613DevOps is starting to attract mainstream attention, but there is still confusion about what DevOps is and what it takes to have a successful DevOps initiative. Some companies have tried to automate their way to DevOps success; many others are trying to stay true to the core DevOps CAMS (Culture, Automation, Measurement, Sharing) principles. Unfortunately, most information available is related more to web 2.0 companies than more complex enterprise environments.

These stories are starting to emerge with more enterprise-friendly content and are being presented at DevOps-related conferences. Unfortunately, many organizations can’t afford to wait for lots of successful enterprise DevOps use cases to be published. Although admittedly, they might not know that they don’t have time!

On December 12 at 8am PST I’ll be hosting our next monthly DevOps Drive-In webcast with Kurt Bittner of Forrester Research, Inc. We’ll share 12 tips for bringing deployment automation and release process improvement together to create the perfect recipe for DevOps success. The 12 ways of DevOps webcast will help you on your way to DevOps nirvana in the enterprise. Register here.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/12/the-12-ways-of-devops/feed/0Serena Release Manager v5: A Lifecycle Approach to Addressing Key DevOps Concernshttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/12/serena-release-manager-v5-a-lifecycle-approach-to-addressing-key-devops-concerns/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=serena-release-manager-v5-a-lifecycle-approach-to-addressing-key-devops-concerns
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/12/serena-release-manager-v5-a-lifecycle-approach-to-addressing-key-devops-concerns/#commentsWed, 04 Dec 2013 22:41:55 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=3591I’ve just returned from the Gartner Data Center event in London, where Serena Software was a sponsor (booth pictured to the right). We showcased the newly announced Serena Release Manager v5 and talked with numerous companies in attendance.

In 2012, Gartner interviewed over 200 CIOs on the topic of DevOps and found that release management was the number one issue they face. And on this same topic, our customers tell us that they need to improve visibility, reduce rework and errors associated with manual task execution and ineffective handoffs, and increase the reuse of assets such as runbooks. At the recent London event, the conversations I had certainly validated not only the issues, but Serena’s lifecycle approach.

With Serena Release Manager v5, the bar will be significantly raised in support of release management. Serena has taken a lifecycle approach towards addressing the challenges of scoping, building, deployment, and supporting software application releases. Serena Release Manager is built on the foundation of Serena Business Manager (SBM), in use at over 1600 companies globally for work management, and fully integrated with our application release automation technology into this single product.

Out of the box, we deliver nearly 50 reports and KPIs in the form of a completely customizable dashboard. The default processes around release trains, application releases, approvals and handoffs (turnovers) all have their own workflow and are each first class citizens in our reference model. If you want to modify one of our workflows, no problem; the drag-n-drop composer tool is simple to learn and use.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/12/serena-release-manager-v5-a-lifecycle-approach-to-addressing-key-devops-concerns/feed/0SBM 10.1.3 Driving Tremendous Innovation in Serena Solutionshttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/12/sbm-10-1-3-driving-tremendous-innovation-in-serena-solutions/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=sbm-10-1-3-driving-tremendous-innovation-in-serena-solutions
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/12/sbm-10-1-3-driving-tremendous-innovation-in-serena-solutions/#commentsWed, 04 Dec 2013 14:37:06 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=3564With the release of Serena Business Manager (SBM) 10.1.3, we are introducing some exciting new capabilities in the SBM platform, and driving considerable advances and improvements in both Serena Release Manager and Serena Service Manager solutions. I’m thrilled with:

The new Work Center UI that optimizes the collaborative user experience.

The powerful new global submit & search to streamline the creation and search of work items.

The in-line e-mail approval to speed transitions.

Support of a channel agnostic approach to work and task management.

Significant improvements to reporting and a user-configurable dashboard elevate the power of SBM. Together with a raft of additional features and enhancements, we are delivering significant benefits to users of SBM, Serena Release Manager and Serena Service Manager.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/12/sbm-10-1-3-driving-tremendous-innovation-in-serena-solutions/feed/0A Better Way to Solve the Complexities of Release Managementhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/12/a-better-way-to-solve-the-complexities-of-release-management/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=a-better-way-to-solve-the-complexities-of-release-management
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/12/a-better-way-to-solve-the-complexities-of-release-management/#commentsWed, 04 Dec 2013 00:18:33 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=3551Having spent many years of my career in both IT operations and application development, I’ve seen both sides of the problem. I remember quite vividly the late night weekend heroics onsite implementing a new release or being woken up at home on a failed release. I’ve also experienced the intense deadline pressure as a developer to deliver the new features that will help ensure that the business makes its quarterly number. From each perspective I always viewed the other team as … well, “the other team.” We rarely spoke unless there were problems or we were at the very end of the release, and I had no visibility into what that team was doing or needed until it was typically too late. We had a process but it was slow, cumbersome, and fragile to say the least. Does this sound familiar? Not much has changed since my days as a developer.

Everyone has a release management process, but the majority of customers we have talked to are unhappy with the current state of release management. That is why the DevOps movement is gaining so much traction. DevOps core principles of culture, automation, measurement, and sharing (CAMS) makes so much sense. Up until now, software vendors have focused solely on solving the “A” part of the problem – automation. Sure automation is important, required, and a great place to start and get some quick wins. But just automating deployments does not address the lack of collaboration, sharing, and visibility. Automating “garbage in” will only make “garbage out” faster. Yes, failing fast is better than failing slow, but I’d rather succeed fast, wouldn’t you?

With the introduction of Serena Release Manager v5, Serena Software becomes the first and only vendor to address the challenges of the complete release lifecycle. Serena Release Manager v5 allows companies to orchestrate their entire release lifecycle by bringing together release process management and application release automation in a single product. Serena Release Manager bridges the DevOps divide by integrating with existing tool chains, and by simplifying and automating handoffs across development, quality, and operations teams. By supporting continuous delivery and production deployments, Serena Release Manager creates a repeatable and consistent release process across distributed, cloud, and mainframe applications. Serena Release Manager v5 capabilities include:

Ability to plan, track, and control the release process: Delivers best practice out-of-the-box yet easily tailored processes that manage releases throughout the entire path to production. These processes are versioned, shared, controlled, and auditable, enabling users to plan and schedule releases, track milestones and stage gates.

Management of Deployments and Environments: Supports the management, scheduling, and configuration of development and test environments within the release process. Define, document, automate, manage, and report on deployment processes that implement changes into releases with Runbooks and Turnovers.

The DevOps principles of culture, automation, measurement, and sharing (CAMS) support the objective of delivering customer value faster and more reliably. While it’s true that Serena Release Manager does not change culture, it does start an important transformation by eliminating the manual steps, botched handoffs, and poor communication that reinforce stereotypes, breed mistrust, and deepen silos. With the automation of previously manual and error-prone human tasks, and with the transparency of the release process across diverse silos, smart and capable Dev and Ops practitioners are freed up to do more value-added work, collaborate better with colleagues, and communicate more effectively up and downstream.

With Serena Release Manager, organizations deploy and follow a release process that is instrumented at every step. Cycle times and stage durations are automatically measured and reported, allowing organizations to focus on continuous improvement, delivering more customer value faster and more reliably. To see the latest version of Serena Release Manager in action, tune in to the live webcast and demonstration on Tuesday, December 17. Register now!

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/12/a-better-way-to-solve-the-complexities-of-release-management/feed/2Meet Serena at the Gartner AADI Summit in Las Vegashttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/11/meet-serena-at-the-gartner-aadi-summit-in-las-vegas/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=meet-serena-at-the-gartner-aadi-summit-in-las-vegas
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/11/meet-serena-at-the-gartner-aadi-summit-in-las-vegas/#commentsMon, 25 Nov 2013 21:15:38 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=3528I’m thrilled to announce Serena’s sponsorship at the Gartner AADI summit from December 3-5 in Las Vegas. I will be available for face-to-face meetings, along with a number of my Serena colleagues, at booth 313 at the Sponsor’s Pavilion. We look forward to answering your questions and enquiries on Serena Application Development and Delivery solutions and sharing details of imminent and future Serena product releases that will allow you to modernize, innovate, enable and empower your business.

On Wednesday December 4th, I will host a lunch discussion on how “Agile Requires Modernizing the Rest of the Development Lifecycle.” I look forward to hearing your views and sharing insights from both customer implementations and our strategic roadmap.

If you or your colleagues are attending the Summit, make sure you swing by our booth to view demonstrations, simply get your questions answered, and participate in a survey for a prize. And remember to keep calm and release more!

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/11/meet-serena-at-the-gartner-aadi-summit-in-las-vegas/feed/0Get An Early Preview of Serena Release Manager v5 at Gartner Data Center Summithttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/11/get-an-early-preview-of-serena-release-manager-v5-at-gartner-data-center-summit/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=get-an-early-preview-of-serena-release-manager-v5-at-gartner-data-center-summit
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/11/get-an-early-preview-of-serena-release-manager-v5-at-gartner-data-center-summit/#commentsFri, 22 Nov 2013 00:00:44 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=3503I’ll be heading to London next week for the Gartner Data Center Summit from November 25-26. Serena Software is a sponsor and we will showcase our soon-to-be-released Serena Release Manager v5.

In a 2012 Gartner DevOps survey of over 200 CIOs, release management was rated the number one issue. No surprise that our customers tell us pretty much the same thing; they need to improve visibility, reduce rework and errors associated with manual task execution and ineffective handoffs, and increase the reuse of assets such as runbooks.

With Serena Release Manager v5, the bar will be significantly raised in support of release management. Serena has taken a lifecycle approach towards addressing the challenges of scoping, building, deployment, and supporting software application releases. Serena Release Manager is built on the foundation of Serena Business Manager (SBM), which is in use at over 1600 companies globally for work management and is fully integrated with our application release automation technology into Serena Release Manager v5.

Out of the box, Serena Release Manager v5 delivers nearly 50 reports and KPIs in the form of a fully customizable dashboard. The default processes around release trains, application releases, approval and handoffs (turnovers) all have their own workflow and are each first-class citizens in our reference model. If you want to modify one of our workflows, no problem; the drag-n-drop composer tool is simple to learn and use.

If you plan to attend the London Gartner event, please stop by the Serena booth and say hello. Plus, ask to see Serena Release Manager v5! Or, meet us at the Gartner Data Center Conference in Las Vegas from December 9-12; we’ll be there as well.

Keep an eye on www.serena.com for more news and information about a v5 introduction webcast in the near future!

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/11/get-an-early-preview-of-serena-release-manager-v5-at-gartner-data-center-summit/feed/0Dimensions CM 14 Reveals Change Visualization and Peer Reviews (part 1 of 2)http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/11/dimensions-cm-14-reveals-change-visualization-and-peer-reviews-part-1-of-2/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=dimensions-cm-14-reveals-change-visualization-and-peer-reviews-part-1-of-2
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/11/dimensions-cm-14-reveals-change-visualization-and-peer-reviews-part-1-of-2/#commentsWed, 20 Nov 2013 22:48:07 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=3490Two of the most highly anticipated areas of new development for Dimensions CM 14 are change visualization and peer reviews. Taken as individual new capability areas, these features represent a massive stride forward for our flagship SCCM solution. And when combined together, they will redefine the way Dimensions CM users think about parallel development and agile practices. In this two-part blog, we’ll talk about Change Visualization first and then follow up with a look at Peer Reviews.

Traditionally, Serena has excelled at providing control and insight into the development process for stakeholders, such as release managers, business analysts, auditors and quality assurance managers. With Dimensions CM 14, we wanted to bring similar value to every member of the development team.

An advanced implementation of changesets gives developers much greater visibility into changes and allows almost instant creation of projects, streams and baselines. Changesets give developers the freedom to manage and merge changes safely. They also provide release managers with the control and visibility they require to create stable releases.

Developers often need to know what changed where and why in order to diagnose a problem or discover why some functionality is broken or has changed. The Changeset View does just that. It not only shows which team members are delivering changes to which features and branches of code but it also gives further insight into the “health” of those changes (did they build and pass their unit tests, who performed the peer review of the change, did it pass peer review and what was checked during the review etc.)

We wanted to add features that would make a developer’s daily life easier, rather than traditional change and configuration management features which are often viewed as “getting in the way” of the developer’s work.

Dimensions CM 14 introduces an innovative graphical view of change history and streams across multiple releases. This gives developers and release managers a visual understanding of what changes are being worked on, where, and why. Tight coupling with continuous integration tools, such as Jenkins, provides feedback on the health of changes and real time indication of release readiness based on build and test status. These results are linked to the changesets in CM and enable you to make decisions based on the quality of the builds. Now you can monitor all your streams of development and changesets at a glance. Without switching tools you can easily review the health of your changes ahead of further development or release activities.

The implementation of changesets, together with Change Visualization, significantly improves development team performance, considerably simplifies the management of stream-based development, and provides actionable insight into the health of each development or release stream.

Look out for more from Serena in this area – the Changeset Graph is just the first step! We will be adding further information about changes, their dependencies and their health/release readiness. Another area we’re investigating is improving the process and visibility of branching by making it easier to start a new branch of development, eg. provisioning the required tools and environment. Even further out, we’d like to explore opportunities to simplify and automate the merging of branches.

Stay tuned for part two of this blog series where we’ll take a look at the upcoming Peer Review capabilities in Dimensions CM 14. If you are an existing Dimensions CM user, we invite you to join the Serena Dimensions CM 14 Preview Program. After registering your application to join this program, Serena will invite you to our various preview webinars and sneak peeks as we work our way towards final release in April 2014. Register your interest in the program!

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/11/dimensions-cm-14-reveals-change-visualization-and-peer-reviews-part-1-of-2/feed/1Passion, excitement and CAMS, my thoughts on DevOpsDays and Velocity in Londonhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/11/passion-excitement-and-cams-my-thoughts-on-devopsdays-and-velocity-in-london/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=passion-excitement-and-cams-my-thoughts-on-devopsdays-and-velocity-in-london
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/11/passion-excitement-and-cams-my-thoughts-on-devopsdays-and-velocity-in-london/#commentsSat, 16 Nov 2013 21:53:13 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=3482I’ve just spent an amazing week in London. I already had high hopes for this trip having been to DevOpsDays London earlier this year but I didn’t expect to be blown away by the events.

Attendees at both events were from all over Europe. I’m used to meeting people from different cultures and backgrounds at events in the USA but this was on a totally different scale.

As to be expected, culture and process were areas of pain that people are having a hard time dealing with. Tools are one of the easier things to bring into an environment. At DevOpsDays John Willis did an excellent presentation on Software Defined Networking. While this isn’t something I would mention, there was one thing he said that was really important. A lot of his talk was about tools and technology. John ended by reminding all of us, including himself, to continue to do CAMS not AMS. It’s too easy for those of us who are really passionate about technology to fall in love with tools and forget about culture.

There were many other great presentations and open space sessions at DevOpsDays. There was an excellent ignite session on the topic of Burnout in the industry. Based on what is coming from my Twitter feed, there is a lot of discussion about burnout and depression in the industry. It is healthy that this is being brought up for discussion. Although I didn’t get to attend the open space session on the topic, I’ll make sure I do at the next conference I attend that discusses it.

The next conference was Velocity. I’ve been to a few Velocity Conferences and this was the best yet. As someone who is extremely passionate about technology, some of the tricks and tips for getting extreme performance from websites and apps were extremely exciting. I’ve not played with web development for a while but I came away from the conference wanting to find reasons to try out some of the techniques demonstrated.

As much as the technology itself is exciting and important, time after time culture and process are highlighted in sessions, especially around accepting that failure will happen. I firmly believe that Serena’s Release Management solution can go a long way to help you tame your processes and help facilitate collaboration. Over the coming weeks we’ll be writing more about Serena’s process-centric view of release management, which can help you transform the way you work.

Finally, there were a couple of sessions on DevOps and continuous delivery in financial companies. I’ll write about those once I have a chance to review the slides and watch the sessions again. They were very exciting sessions and are great examples for Serena customers who would really like to change the way they work in risk averse environments but don’t know where to start.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/11/passion-excitement-and-cams-my-thoughts-on-devopsdays-and-velocity-in-london/feed/1Failure is inevitable but you don’t need to be afraidhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/11/failure-is-inevitable-but-you-dont-need-to-be-afraid/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=failure-is-inevitable-but-you-dont-need-to-be-afraid
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/11/failure-is-inevitable-but-you-dont-need-to-be-afraid/#commentsWed, 13 Nov 2013 12:18:49 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=3471DevOpsDays London is over and, as usual, there were some great sessions. Exposing fragility in systems was once again a topic that was discussed.

If you follow the DevOps movement at all, you will no doubt have heard of chaos monkey at Netflix numerous times. For those who have not heard about it, chaos monkey runs in all environments, including production environments, killing processes in order to test how the environment responds to failure. This has led to a loosely coupled, fault tolerant system.

While most companies aren’t able to inject failures on a scale that Netflix does, that doesn’t mean that others aren’t embracing this approach.

There was a presentation on how Pager Duty has “Failure Friday,” where they introduce failures into their system. This allows them to test not only how resilient their software is but also how good their monitoring, logging and processes are.

Are you able to inject failure into your systems and respond to them without your application going down in flames? Whatever the answer is, it might be a good idea to have your own Failure Friday and learn how to cope with failure.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/11/failure-is-inevitable-but-you-dont-need-to-be-afraid/feed/1The Debate About DevOps Teamshttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/11/the-debate-about-devops-teams/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-debate-about-devops-teams
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/11/the-debate-about-devops-teams/#commentsTue, 12 Nov 2013 17:17:52 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=3451Last week I was at DevOpsDays Portland. As expected, the open space topics were really interesting. Two in particular stood out for me. The first was about fitting DevOps into your organization. DevOps teams seemed to be the way people were going. If you have been to other events with prominent figures of the DevOps community present, you may have noticed how the mention of “DevOps teams” can spur heated debates.

I believe organizations are opting for DevOps teams because it side steps the cultural aspect of DevOps. I’m torn on this because this could lead to one more silo that will make matters worse. However, there is a valid case for DevOps teams, as discussed by Jez Humble. I got the sense that there will be silos built that hopefully will be torn down and the culture of DevOps fully embraced.

The other open space session that got my attention was about DevOps in the enterprise. There was a lot of discussion around tools. Participants realized that process and being able to model processes in tools are important. I don’t go to DevOpsDays events to pitch Serena products, but I was asked to describe what Serena does for managing DevOps processes. At Serena, we take a process-centric approach to release management. We understand that processes in the enterprise are complex, need to integrate into many different systems and need to provide robust auditing and reporting capabilities. The fact that Serena has been helping model processes for many years in some of the most complex environments with heavy regulatory requirements seemed to resonate. Add to that Serena’s investment in release management and DevOps and I believe we have an exceptionally compelling solution.

Serena has a monthly DevOps Drive-In webcast series. This month on November 21 at 8am PT we have Richard Michaels from Eaton Vance discussing release management at Eaton Vance and how Serena’s solutions helped tame their release management process. You can register for the webcast here.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/11/the-debate-about-devops-teams/feed/1SBM Makes My Job Easierhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/11/sbm-makes-my-job-easier/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=sbm-makes-my-job-easier
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/11/sbm-makes-my-job-easier/#commentsMon, 11 Nov 2013 17:07:58 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=3397Running global Support and IT organizations brings many challenges on a daily basis; not only technical ones but also communication challenges among my teams, other teams within Serena, and, of course, our customers.

I hope that you would expect Serena to use our own technology internally and you would be right. Serena Support are extensive users of Serena Business Manager (SBM) throughout our various processes.

When a customer works with Support and we identify an issue as being either a bug or enhancement request, we let SBM take over the management and tracking of issues.

I like to keep a close eye on Defect/Closure trends so I can be sure all departments are working as closely together as possible. To the right is a typical chart I review monthly.

Our system tightly interfaces with the Research & Development SBM system, which records, tracks and updates customer requests. The Support and Development management teams use SBM to prioritize what is developed and when it is released, all of which is tied back to the initial customer support request.

Using the SBM workflow I am able to quickly determine the current and historical state of issues and pinpoint any blockage that may be slowing things down. Sometimes we’ll see a “Level 3 Request.” The screenshot below shows a high level description of the issue and the help requested.

The screenshot below illustrates the process flow and how we track actions and owners.

As you can see, we have very open communication with our customers. Even more important to note is how Serena Support interacts very closely with the R&D organization and how well they work together.

Sometimes, of course, things do go wrong and we have a tight Escalation process that we follow.

The screenshot below demonstrates how we handle such escalations. This issue has gone through our process from Support Engineer through development and out to customers in a very clear way that can be audited. I review this information on a regular basis, seeking out trends wherever possible so I can further improve how I work. You’ll see that this escalation has worked around the world, around the clock.

A very useful view for me is the social view (image at right). I can very quickly see the latest interactions and figure out who to call.

Not only do I manage all of the above using SBM but I also use it to manage the IT ServiceDesk, company-wide vacation requests, purchase requests and the Employee Onboarding processes, to name but a few.

If you’d like to talk about any aspects of the above, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/11/sbm-makes-my-job-easier/feed/0Continuous Deployment Can Work For You Toohttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/11/continuous-deployment-can-work-for-you-too/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=continuous-deployment-can-work-for-you-too
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/11/continuous-deployment-can-work-for-you-too/#commentsWed, 06 Nov 2013 03:18:45 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=3375Last week I attended FlowCon in San Francisco. Unlike DevOpsDays and Velocity conferences that I have been to FlowCon had an enterprise focus. Early on in the conference there was a presentation by a typical DevOps poster child. I had a sinking feeling, was I just going to sit through another presentation about all of the cool stuff that is done in Silicon Valley does but doesn’t resonate in the enterprise?

The good news is that this wasn’t the typical story that I have heard so many times. While a lot of time was spent on uptime and scalability, the presentation covered segregation of duties. That’s not something I had heard before and I got a bit excited.

This online company has compliance requirements, just like banks, insurance companies and other verticals that are interested in DevOps and Continuous Deployment but has doubts that it can work in their environments.

According to the presentation the company is able to do Continuous Deployment because they don’t treat all servers in the same way. One of the benefits of service oriented architecture is that services requiring different levels of control and compliance can be handled separately to services that have no such compliance issues. Services that need to be handled in a more restricted manner have restricted access and changes aren’t pushed out automatically. Services that don’t need to be so strictly controlled can be updated many times per day using Continuous Deployment.

This approach was startlingly obvious once I heard it. If you are reading this and would like to take steps on the road to Continuous Deployment or Continuous Delivery and you thought you couldn’t due to compliance issues, could you do something similar? You may not have applications and services that have a service oriented architecture but perhaps it is possible to isolate parts of your codebase so that you can make changes quickly with minimum fuss in some parts of your application.

Continuous Deployment doesn’t have to be all or nothing for your application. If you can deploy quickly to parts of your application and it adds value to your customers then why not give it a try?

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/11/continuous-deployment-can-work-for-you-too/feed/0Modern Development Practices for the Agile Lifecyclehttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/11/modern-development-practices-for-the-agile-lifecycle/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=modern-development-practices-for-the-agile-lifecycle
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/11/modern-development-practices-for-the-agile-lifecycle/#commentsMon, 04 Nov 2013 18:02:08 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=3354I’m often asked by customers how they can best modernize their software development practices. After all, many organizations are under increasing pressure to respond to their business or customer needs faster, while delivering with higher quality to on-premise, virtualized and increasing cloud environments.

Many early adopters of agile have seen the challenges of responding faster move downstream, from development to release and operations, while the business continues to request better transparency and visibility into the status of development and release streams. While development and test practices are increasingly coupled, and there is increasing adoption of continuous delivery practices to further automate delivery to production, development teams are still challenged with the complexity of managing multiple development and release streams. In talking recently with a director of software development, a large part of the discussion centered around his desire to assess and view the health and quality of his multiple development streams while streamlining the assembly of his release configurations in preparation for deployment.

As a former manager of development, I can recall placing significant focus on understanding the health and quality of our development branches/streams at all phases of development, the frustration many of us shared with the increasing complexity of project and branch merging, and the encouragement of collaboration and communication across all stakeholders and functional teams, so we did not waste time unnecessarily in preparing reports. While agile planning is no longer new, and we are seeing a growing focus on addressing release management challenges, I maintain there is tremendous innovation and potential for organizations to modernize development practices further to complement both agile planning and continuous delivery.

Returning to the discussion with the director of software development, we focused discussion on the need to advance and improve parallel and concurrent development practices, in particular around the introduction of visual indicators of the health and quality of development streams (to include the status of associated changes, automated builds and tests), and improving integration of the collaborative peer review process directly into the development activities. While a Peer Review process is often seen as standalone, I believe it should be integral to a modernized development practice.

I was delighted to share the investment Serena is making in the next generation of Dimensions CM, which directly addresses the evolution of modern development practices and further streamlines the complexity of managing multiple streams and streamlining the assembly for release. We are seeing great customer reaction and participation in the Preview Program, which speaks volumes to the ongoing customer interest and demand for modernizing software development practices.

Here at Serena we’ve long viewed the Application Lifecycle as a process and we need to see it in the context of the Agile Lifecycle, ensuring we not only modernize development practices but ensure orchestration with upstream planning and work item management, and down-stream release management and service management.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/11/modern-development-practices-for-the-agile-lifecycle/feed/0The Knight Capital Saga – How to Go Out of Business in 45 Minuteshttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/10/the-knight-capital-saga-how-to-go-out-of-business-in-45-minutes/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-knight-capital-saga-how-to-go-out-of-business-in-45-minutes
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/10/the-knight-capital-saga-how-to-go-out-of-business-in-45-minutes/#commentsWed, 30 Oct 2013 21:27:01 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=3335An excellent blog post on the events that led to Knight Capital’s bankruptcy in just 45 minutes was forwarded to me. Most of us in the industry have heard the story. It has been used either by vendors as an example of why tools and processes are critical or by others as an example of how things can go very wrong.

With the release of the SEC report, we now have more information than we had in the past. Looking back on my career, I can see how some of the events that occurred could quite easily have happened to me or other people that I know. Fine examples are:

One server in a cluster not being updated.

Developers reusing a flag that was no longer thought to be in use.

Dead code coming back to life.

Unusual messages from an application being ignored.

As I work for Serena and I’m writing about this, it shouldn’t be a surprise that we have tools that can address some of the issues that led up to Knight Capital’s bankruptcy. Serena Release Automation (SRA) can be configured so that all servers in an environment are modeled in SRA, ensuring that code is deployed to all servers. Serena Release Control can model the processes and approvals necessary to ensure that all turnovers have been completed and so on.

The clear message to me, though, is that tools alone can’t solve all release problems. At Velocity NYC, I attended a great keynote by Zane Lackey of Etsy and Dan Kaminsky, a well-respected security researcher. They talked about many aspects of security, including zombie code, which is code that you long thought dead in your codebase but is still accessible. There is a lot of old code that is still active, just waiting for something to trigger it.

As pointed out by Zane, the good news is that for web apps, detecting zombie code can be quite easy and done by analyzing logs that you already have. Plus, once you have good release management processes and tools in place, including deployment automation, it is relatively easy to include such checks into your automated release process.

How does this relate to the Knight Capital incident? Engineers at Knight Capital repurposed an existing flag. This is something I would not suggest doing. A new build that used the repurposed flag was installed to a cluster of servers. However, one server was missed. This led to all servers, except one, working as expected. After some troubleshooting, the code on the working servers was rolled back to the previous build. While this led to a consistent set of servers, the repurposed flag was still set, resulting in code that should not be executing to be executed. The rest is history.

There are many, many lessons that can be learned from this (not leaving unused code in your codebase being one of them). Another is that an important, robust release process is a necessary part of keeping your business healthy.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/10/the-knight-capital-saga-how-to-go-out-of-business-in-45-minutes/feed/3All Your Source Code Is Under Change Control, Now What?http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/10/all-your-source-code-is-under-change-control-now-what/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=all-your-source-code-is-under-change-control-now-what
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/10/all-your-source-code-is-under-change-control-now-what/#commentsWed, 30 Oct 2013 19:56:07 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=3317So you have all your source code under change control. If it’s under control of ChangeMan ZMF you are in the best hands possible.

But what about all those other datasets? How do you control the changes to the SYS1.PARMLIB? How would you know if an authorized application updated SYS1.LINKLIB? How do you keep changes to SYS1.PROCLIB in step on every image?

It’s not only SYS1.** but what about the configuration datasets for CICS, IMS, DB2 and for Websphere? There are thousands of datasets in our infrastructure that are not under any form of change control other than through the security access controls of RACF, ACF2 or Top Secret.

Of course, secure access control is usually enough but errors do occur and they can go unnoticed for hours, even days before their effects are discovered. This is why you need to put your system files under change control too; but a new kind of change control that meets the dynamic needs of systems programmers and the risk parameters of the business continuity team.

ChangeMan SSM provides real-time tracking of system datasets. The systems programmers choose which ones and report changes as they occur. Changes are noted and stored away in a dataset. In the future, those changes can be reviewed and, if needed, can be restored to their original state through a very simple online interface. Of course, the changes can be propagated to other systems too if they are needed elsewhere, thus making multi-system changes easy.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/10/all-your-source-code-is-under-change-control-now-what/feed/2Let’s Talk About DevOps in a Microsoft Environmenthttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/10/devopsdays-vancouver/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=devopsdays-vancouver
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/10/devopsdays-vancouver/#commentsMon, 28 Oct 2013 17:45:49 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=3308I’m at the first ever DevOpsDays Vancouver, Canada. The event came about from a casual conversation at DevOpsDays Austin and it’s been a fantastic success.

The sessions have been great. I really enjoyed the session from Hootsuite on how they are able to deliver working code faster by using vagrant as part of their tool-chain.

Brian Johnson delivered a great ignite session that was basically a warning not to let DevOps go the way of ITIL because the intentions of ITIL were very close to DevOps before it changed over time. I’m not going to attempt to deliver Brian’s message. The full length version of the presentation that Brian delivered at DevOpsDays Atlanta was amazing and is well worth watching. It can be viewed here.

The open space sessions were very informative as usual. I proposed a space on doing DevOps in a Microsoft environment. The session had surprisingly good turnout and proved to me that the Microsoft ecosystem is still alive and kicking in the Vancouver tech scene. As good as the Microsoft developer ecosystem is, currently people have to rely on many other solutions to fill gaps in the Microsoft tool-chain. Unlike conferences in the U.S. that I have attended that have a very positive impression of PowerShell as the scripting language of Windows, opinions were much more negative here. It is clear though that in many cross platform open source projects on the DevOps space, Windows is still an afterthought.

For the first time at a DevOps event this year there was no mention of “The Phoenix Project.” DevOps culture conversations are certainly easier and more fun when you can talk about Bill, Brent, Erik and others.

I’m looking forward to next year and also hopefully a few DevOpsDays events elsewhere in Canada.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/10/devopsdays-vancouver/feed/0Insight From the DevOps Kanban Gamehttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/10/insight-from-the-devops-kanban-game/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=insight-from-the-devops-kanban-game
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/10/insight-from-the-devops-kanban-game/#commentsFri, 25 Oct 2013 19:28:36 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=3289Recently I attended a workshop hosted by Dominica Degrandis on using Kanban in an organization working in a DevOps-like manner. The workshop was full of practical advice not only on why Kanban can help you but also on how to be successful in your implementation. Attendance was good; people came from the east coast to attend what I thought was a local workshop.

As we discussed things that we had each tried in our organization, it became apparent that some of us had worked in a stealth Kanban-like manner. In my case it was monitoring the throughput of tasks and making sure there was slack in the system so that my team could respond better than if we optimized for efficiency.

I was most looking forward to Dominica’s DevOps game and wondered what insights playing the game would lead to. In the game there is a Kanban board with columns for exploration, dev, QA and ops tasks. There is also a lane for handling tasks that needed to be expedited. Without giving the game away, money was earned for completing tasks. The game wonderfully illustrated how focusing on features and ignoring technical debt was harmful and also showed how optimizing for throughput rather than efficiency yields better results.

Overall, the workshop and the game illustrated the value of thinking holistically rather than as individual units in an organization. It is a more effective way to work. Doing the opposite can result in decisions that are “locally brilliant and globally stupid.” I can’t take credit for that wonderful phrase. I got it from Glenn O’Donnell from Forrester, but it is so very fitting for both decisions I have made in the past and ones I have seen others make.

I’m not saying that breaking down silos and thinking in terms of the entire system is easy. It most certainly isn’t, but the game simulates the benefits in a way that people can relate.

I’m looking forward to hearing Dominica speak at Flowcon on November 1st.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/10/insight-from-the-devops-kanban-game/feed/0Mainframe Sessions Were the Place to Be at xChange13http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/10/mainframe-sessions-were-the-place-to-be-at-xchange13/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=mainframe-sessions-were-the-place-to-be-at-xchange13
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/10/mainframe-sessions-were-the-place-to-be-at-xchange13/#commentsThu, 24 Oct 2013 17:14:48 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=3279I trust that all of our customers that attended xChange13, Serena’s global user conference, are back in their offices implementing one or more valuable tips they learned from the conference. And I know there wasn’t any shortage of great information delivered, especially from the Mainframe product team.

The most highly anticipated and rated session at xChange13 came from Bob Yates, Mainframe Account Manager, who showed off the new migration utility. Customers who have old repositories in products that are no longer supported are feeling exposed and left behind. Many of them face serious audit finding when the state of these repositories are discovered. The new migration utility pulls out the code, the relationships, the histories and the version from old repositories from CA-Panvalet, CA-Librarian and CA-Endevor. Along the way it validates the repository and fixes the errors it inevitably finds.

Also in the mainframe track, veteran users showcased how to get the most out of their solutions by taking the technology to new levels. R&D introduced the 2014 roadmap and showed off some advanced features that are coming soon while partners shared how to exploit the Serena mainframe ecosystem. With every session filled and positive feedback received, the mainframe track was, once again, the place to be at xChange13.

Our customer presentations really set the tone for the track. Prakash Balakrishnan, from Nationwide Insurance, showed how they were making use of off-host development by exploiting the client-pack. This was followed by Serena’s Bob Yates describing all the other capabilities that Client Pack had to offer. Long-time user and ChangeMan ZMF guru, Michael Bailey of MetLife, laid out a comprehensive plan of user configurable tweaks that make administration as easy as possible. Many of these great ideas will, one day I’m sure, find their way into the product.

Thank you to all of our customers and partners for informative and entertaining presentations. Liberal sprinklings of Belgian chocolate and a cool demo are always crowd pleasers. If you missed xChange13, contact me and I will be happy to share the presentations with you. Or watch the xChange13 playlist on YouTube to see some of the main stage presentations.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/10/mainframe-sessions-were-the-place-to-be-at-xchange13/feed/0Serena Community Project Aids Students With Learning Difficultieshttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/10/serena-community-project-aids-students-with-learning-difficulties/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=serena-community-project-aids-students-with-learning-difficulties
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/10/serena-community-project-aids-students-with-learning-difficulties/#commentsTue, 15 Oct 2013 20:31:03 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=3261Like many professionals in the workplace, I struggle to find the extra hour in the day just to “get it all done.” The thought of service to my community does cross my mind, especially when there are so many areas that need attention. But when, how? Basically, I need to roll up my sleeves and dig in, just like the Serena St. Albans, UK office did. My heart warmed when I heard about the team volunteering to help out at the Watling View School recently.

Watling View School is a school for children and young people with severe learning difficulties. They have 85 students between the ages of 3 and 19 and have plans to increase enrollment. The school grounds were in need of some tender, love and care after the summer break. This became a great opportunity for the Serena St. Albans team to give back, learn about the school, and most important, interact with the students, who absolutely love to meet and work with visitors.

After a quick briefing, the team of Serena employees and students worked to tidy up the vegetable and sensory gardens, and helped continue construction of a greenhouse made out of bamboo sticks and recycled plastic bottles (pictured). How cool is that? I’m a huge supporter of environmental sustainability and this part of the project was so interesting to me. If you’re thinking of trying this one at home, be prepared to cut and wash a lot of plastic bottles!

I know all of the Serena employees that pitched in at Watling View School really enjoyed helping a wonderful organization, having fun, and coming together as a team to accomplish something positive for those who really need our help. They’re committed to go back to the school each quarter to continue sprucing up the gardens, planting and painting – not to mention completing the greenhouse! See more photos from the event.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/10/serena-community-project-aids-students-with-learning-difficulties/feed/0“Game of Thrones:” DevOps Edition at Velocity NYChttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/10/3253/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=3253
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/10/3253/#commentsTue, 15 Oct 2013 16:46:30 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=3253This is my first time attending the tutorial day at a Velocity conference. It’s a small world as I’ve already met someone I met at DevOpsDays Atlanta and a couple of people I met at a Kanban for DevOps workshop back in Santa Clara a few weeks ago.

The first session of the day covered using Jenkins in operations. I’m a big believer of using the right tool for the job so alarm bells were ringing in my head when I read the session description. This meant that it was a must see session for me.

The session didn’t disappoint. It was a good session but I didn’t agree with the use cases. It was a great example of “when the only tool you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail.” Jenkins excels in managing builds. Look at the UI how often is build referred to? There are better solutions for ops runbook automation.

The next session I went to was about using Sensu for painless metrics and monitoring in the cloud. I was very impressed with the preparation. A VM was provided for people to use when working through the examples.

The afternoon sessions were informative, although more in line with regular conference sessions than tutorials.

The day wrapped up with ignite sessions. Somehow I ended up presenting and had a lot of fun. The great thing for the audience is that the range of presentation topics varies wildly and yesterday was no exception. As my ignite was the least serious of the proposals I got to go last and presented Game of Thrones: DevOps Edition. Fortunately the audience enjoyed the topic and there were a fair few Game of Thrones fans in the audience. I’ll admit that presenting ignite sessions is becoming something I am starting to enjoy.

If you enjoy getting information in an entertaining format then I encourage you to attend our October DevOps Drive-In webcast which is a DevOps panel starring Damon Edwards from DTO Solutions and Dave West from Tasktop. Damon and Dave participated in an extremely entertaining panel at the Serena xChange13 user conference that was extremely well received. You can register for the webcast here.

ChangeMan SSM 8.4 can be installed with IBM’s SMP/E method as well as the non-SMP/E (IEBCOPY) method of installing Serena’s mainframe products. Installation instructions for each method are provided in the ChangeMan SSM 8.4 Installation Guide.

Enhanced Operational Integrity

This feature allows ChangeMan SSM to identify important z/OS data set names and add them to dynamically defined groups to provide for automatic change tracking. When Operational Integrity is enabled, the following data sets will be tracked automatically:

Member Reference Tracking (MRT) has been expanded to pick up more member references. Originally, the BLDL macro only recorded references to a single member. MRT now picks up BLDL macro references to multiple members as well as references from the FIND macro.

Support for Data Sets on Extended Address Volumes (EAV)

HMIGRATE/HRECALL/HDELETE Support for Real Time Change Tracking (RTCT) Option

This enhancement increases the accuracy of the event information by picking up HMIGRATE, HRECALL, and HDELETE data set events when they happen, instead of relying on Global Capture or a CLOSE-driven capture.

How to Obtain the New Release

Please go to the Support Website to obtain the documentation and software for ChangeMan SSM 8.4. (Note: You must be signed into the site to access this link.) On this webpage, you can choose the ChangeMan SSM 8.4 release.

If the above link does not work for you, please log into http://support.serena.com, click the “My Downloads” tab, then select “ChangeMan SSM” in the “Please Select Product” drop-down box.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/10/serena-changeman-ssm-8-4-is-available/feed/0DevOps Isn’t Just for Unicornshttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/10/3226/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=3226
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/10/3226/#commentsMon, 07 Oct 2013 17:24:45 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=3226I am on my way back from DevOpsDays Atlanta. It was the first DevOpsDays event in Atlanta and most of the attendees had never been to a DevOpsDays before. As Serena is supportive of the DevOpsDays events I’ve been to a fair few now and I was starting to see the same faces and topics over and over. Atlanta certainly changed my perception of that. It’s great to see new people coming to DevOpsDays events. John Vincent (@lusis) and the rest of the Atlanta crew did a wonderful job. The venue was awesome and the choice of speakers was spot on. I really enjoyed the event.

To the right is a photo of John taking a photo of the DevOpsDays audience.

The event also continued to prove that DevOps isn’t just for unicorns and enterprises routinely come to DevOpsDays events to learn more about DevOps and how to release software more effectively.

I’m looking forward to subsequent DevOpsDays Atlanta events and also am looking forward to seeing John Vincent on stage again, sooner rather than later. He has quite the stage presence.

I’ll close by announcing an upcoming webcast featuring a popular speaker from the DevOpsDays movement. The upcoming Devops Drive-In webcast for October is a DevOps panel discussion featuring Damon Edwards of DTO Solutions and Dave West of Tasktop. Damon and Dave were part of a larger DevOps Panel at the xChange 2013 user conference and it was so well received we thought we would bring their banter to a larger audience. You can sign up and view a clip of Damon and Dave in action in the DevOps panel by clicking here.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/10/3226/feed/0Top 5 xChange13 “Aha!” Momentshttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/10/top-5-xchange13-aha-moments/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=top-5-xchange13-aha-moments
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/10/top-5-xchange13-aha-moments/#commentsFri, 04 Oct 2013 18:03:07 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=3204A week after xChange13 wrapped up I followed up with track owners and asked what their top 5 moments were from xChange13. Some I could have guessed, others were more surprising.

1. Top of the list was the reception that the Dimensions CM preview received. You can sign up for the preview program here. The reaction from customers was amazing. They can’t wait to get their hands on the finished version.

Observations were spot on and the banter was extremely entertaining. Watch the xChange13 DevOps Panel and see for yourself!

3. A hot customer session was Ron Rogeau of UBS presenting how Serena Release Manager is being used at UBS to transform release management. The room was packed and there were a lot of extremely interested people eager to learn about Release Management at enterprise scale.

5. As it was my first xChange conference I was particularly impressed at the passion of the attendees. Many have attended xChange for several years and still turn out with enthusiasm. Their trips are made worthwhile with the assurance of learning something new and having great conversations.

Finally, a shout out to our wonderful master of ceremonies Mr. Kevin Parker who was magnificent on the main stage and looked absolutely stunning in white!

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/10/top-5-xchange13-aha-moments/feed/2Serena Wins the Big Herts Cycle Challenge, Again!http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/10/serena-wins-the-big-herts-cycle-challenge-again/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=serena-wins-the-big-herts-cycle-challenge-again
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/10/serena-wins-the-big-herts-cycle-challenge-again/#commentsThu, 03 Oct 2013 18:31:37 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=3160I confess that I had no idea what a Fitbit was until my coworkers raved about this tiny device that measures your fitness level at all hours of the day. I’d see them peering at their stats to check how many steps they’d taken and total calories burned. I love how Serena employees take their health and wellness seriously!

This summer the Serena St. Albans, UK office participated in the Big Herts Cycle Challenge, a contest for those working and living in Watford, St. Albans and Hemel Hempstead. The goal was to get as many people as possible riding a bike for at least 10 minutes. The company that enlisted the most participation would be rewarded with a variety of awesome prizes, including a Kindle Fire, dinner voucher for Jamie’s Kitchen and a brownie cake (pictured).

Guess what? Serena won last year. So, they were looking for a repeat. And no surprise that they took top honors again in their organization size category (50-199 people) with 38.5% participation. Collectively, the St Albans office logged 160 trips, which totaled 1,592 miles and 49,350 calories! With those stats, they deserved to eat the cake!

How did they do it, you ask? Training and dedication, even when the weather wasn’t cooperating. The group organized three lunch-time bike trips at varying miles. Plus, a local bike shop created an obstacle course and conducted a watt bike test on site. The participants were definitely motivated and inspired. One employee alone logged in 302 miles.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/10/serena-wins-the-big-herts-cycle-challenge-again/feed/0Develop Anywhere, Deploy Anywherehttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/10/develop-anywhere-deploy-anywhere/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=develop-anywhere-deploy-anywhere
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/10/develop-anywhere-deploy-anywhere/#commentsTue, 01 Oct 2013 23:48:30 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=3177It used to be that the mainframe was an island of technology just as much as the PC once was. But we have seen that distinction blur and nowhere more so than in the world of software development.

Today’s mainframe programmers are just as much at home writing in Java and C as they once were writing in COBOL and PL/I. They are happy editing, compiling and testing in TSO/ISPF on a green screen or debugging, optimizing and tuning in the GUI of Eclipse.

Even the execution environment has morphed into an array of choices that are designed to match the profile of the application and the user experience. z/OS is happy serving up web pages and z/Linux can be your transaction processing hub, Unix System Services (USS) might host your data while CICS serves up web services.

The freedom to select our technology topology to suit our business and application needs is very liberating. But there is a price to pay. Managing all this code and ensuring the integrity of those myriad of pieces is complex. This is why Serena introduced the ChangeMan ZMF Client Pack (screenshot above) and added support for z/Linux and USS deployments.

The Client Pack is designed to provide developers with the ability to use the same Software Change and Release Management solution they have always used, ChangeMan ZMF, whether they are developing in Eclipse or an Eclipse-based IDE like Rational Developer for z/Series (RDz) or Windows IDE’s, such as the ones from Micro Focus. Simple plug-in technologies instantly make the ChangeMan ZMF repositories available on your chosen platform with full access to the code you are working on and the ability to manage the change packages right there from the software menus.

Support for long filenames and member names was introduced into ChangeMan ZMF two versions ago to enable developers who want to write in Java and C for the mainframe to do so under full change control. Developers can see the full 1024 byte file names and 256 byte members names on the mainframe and from their Eclipse, or Eclipse-based, IDE’s. This makes ChangeMan ZMF the only solution to give developers complete access through one technology. The previous version of ZMF added support for Hierarchical File System (HFS) used on USS and z/Linux File System (ZFS), which means your release can con now be deployed to all the mainframe platforms from one solution.

So whatever your development or execution environment, only ChangeMan ZMF supports where you want to be for all your developers and their applications.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/10/develop-anywhere-deploy-anywhere/feed/0Coordination: the Key to Successful Releaseshttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/09/coordination-the-key-to-successful-releases/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=coordination-the-key-to-successful-releases
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/09/coordination-the-key-to-successful-releases/#commentsThu, 26 Sep 2013 17:28:42 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=3150In a very unscientific survey of more than 60 release management customers over the past 18 months, the winner in the “Largest Gantt Chart” award came in at 2.5 meters wide (8’ 2”) by 1.5 meters tall (4’11”) with over 90 “deployment tracks” covering the 68 hours of the “go live deployment weekend” or “GLDW.” One whole track was devoted to catering and it was on the critical path. More than 400 people are involved in the GLDW from noon on Friday until 8:00 am on Monday morning. This happens four times a year and many of the 400 employees spend at least one, sometimes two, nights sleeping at their desks.

Releases have become, for many organizations, more complicated than NASA space launches. And, just like John Glen, you too are now “sitting on top of two million parts … all built by the lowest bidder.” The complexity of releases today is vast when you consider the requirement to deploy software to multiple platforms and geographies. What’s more, that software comes in a myriad of technologies (many of which you have no visibility into and little control over), is developed from a variety of methodologies, and is managed across countless organizations. For many of us, managing this means spreadsheets and project plans, endless meetings and a deluge of email.

Today’s sophisticated, interdependent releases can only happen when you have the infrastructure that allows you complete visibility into the moving parts of the release and the tools that ensure coordinated movement through the lifecycle. At Serena, we have taken this need to the next level by developing the world’s first and leading Enterprise Release Management solution that spans your platforms, connects yours teams, manages your calendar and coordinates your deliverables. Working in concert with our proven Change and Configuration Management solutions on the Mainframe (ChangeMan ZMF) and on Open Systems and Windows (Dimensions CM), Serena Release Control not only gives you the flexibility you need to allow your teams to work in the way that best meets the business needs but also brings coordination and control to make sure they arrive at and depart from release milestones as expected.

By exploiting the open, web services-based architecture of our product set, Serena is able to manage your releases, even if you are using third party source-management solutions. We provide the upstream and downstream visibility needed by everyone from request-to-release and from Dev to Ops, including the ability to fully automate the deployment and handle exceptions.

So, if you are spending your next weekend in the office shepherding your next quarterly release, perhaps you should check the DevOps Drive-In Webcast series, past and upcoming. What you learn might just be able to give you a good night’s sleep.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/09/coordination-the-key-to-successful-releases/feed/0Participate in the Dimensions CM 14 Preview Programhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/09/participate-in-the-dimensions-cm-14-preview-program/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=participate-in-the-dimensions-cm-14-preview-program
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/09/participate-in-the-dimensions-cm-14-preview-program/#commentsWed, 18 Sep 2013 21:08:17 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=3128Serena announced the Dimensions CM 14 Preview Program in a press release today, which aims to give existing customers deeper engagement with the product, in the lead up to release in April 2014. Innovations within Dimensions CM 14 extends the product’s established leadership position in performance, scalability and security, in addition to driving advances in exciting new areas such as change and branch visualization as well as support for mobile development. A private Beta Program has been running since May of this year and initial reaction from customers has been extremely positive.

Software development is a complex practice and Dimensions CM 14 goes to great lengths to simplify some of the toughest problems facing development teams. For example, the innovative approach to changesets and wizard-driven merging simplifies parallel development through our new low cost, high speed branch provisioning and baselining capabilities. This gives developers the freedom to manage changes safely in isolation, without sacrificing the control and visibility required by release managers to bring these changes together into a coherent release.

Distributed teams building multi variant software within shorter delivery cycles has become the norm. With Dimensions CM 14 developers and release managers are empowered to better understand what changes are being worked on and manage the streams of incoming requests and updates. The state-of-the-art ability to visualize changes and code branches across multiple projects, platforms and locations will enable teams to streamline the delivery of code changes in a process that is consistent and easily managed. Visual change history facilitates contextual and meaningful cross-team collaboration. Direct integration with popular continuous integration tools further ensure that release readiness and the health of builds are instantly visible at all times.

Developers of mobile apps will be excited to learn about the new Subversion bridging capability, which enables Dimensions CM clients to support integrations built for Subversion, including xCode and AppCelerator. A new annotation view will enable teams to analyze the historic context of code changes down to the specific lines of code. This capability greatly improves trouble shooting and reduces the risks associated with updating legacy code. In addition, new integrated peer review capabilities will ensure that only the highest quality change submissions end up as part of the build. Dimension CM’s approach to peer review emphasizes team work and the sharing of best practices, which in turn promotes “good citizenship” amongst developers.

Dimensions CM 14 is not just good news for developers. Administrators will appreciate the simplified approach to global enterprise rollout and upgrades. The automatic upgrade of clients and agents will make Dimensions CM 14 the easiest release ever to keep up to date. Beta Program participants are already reporting 10 times faster file retrieval over previous versions, using the new Personal Library Cache Directory (PLCD) technology over a WAN.

The newly announced Preview Program is designed to further extend our customer validation efforts, ensuring value for developers and administrators alike, in addition to bringing to market a high quality release. Register to participate in the Dimensions CM Preview Program! Upon approval of your registration, Serena will provide further details of the Preview Program, such as invitation-only Webinars, early product demonstrations and an opportunity to enroll in the Open Beta program.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/09/participate-in-the-dimensions-cm-14-preview-program/feed/1Topical Fun and Tropical Sun at xChange13http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/09/topical-fun-and-tropical-sun-at-xchange13/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=topical-fun-and-tropical-sun-at-xchange13
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/09/topical-fun-and-tropical-sun-at-xchange13/#commentsWed, 18 Sep 2013 18:11:45 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=3112One of the most hilarious presenters in the technology community is George Spalding of Pink Elephant. As Executive VP, he also has a serious side and is one of the primary authors of ITIL version 3. Day two of the conference started with George looking back at the state of release management since Y2K and then he abruptly brought us up to date with the challenges that we face in a mobile-to-mainframe world. Watch the video to the right.

Peter Sianchuk, Serena’s head of customer experience, talked about the award-winning support organization and innovations they are introducing to make the service they deliver better.

Traditionally, day 2 is also the day for recognizing customer success and exceptional use of Serena’s products. This year’s winners are:

The day completed with a traditional Miami Beach party, complete with salsa dancing and cigar rolling.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/09/topical-fun-and-tropical-sun-at-xchange13/feed/1Off and Running at xChange13http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/09/off-and-running-at-xchange13/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=off-and-running-at-xchange13
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/09/off-and-running-at-xchange13/#commentsWed, 18 Sep 2013 17:38:53 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=3094Day one started with a bang! In a new format, xChange13 got right down to business at 8:00 AM on Monday. Serena President and CEO Greg Hughes immediately set the tone and vision of the conference. Watch the video to the right. He talked about the challenges facing the industry as we navigate through releasing applications with greater velocity and greater throughput 24×7 under never-before pressure to meet time-to-market, compliance and control needs.

Serena’s head of development laid out the future of the product set and highlighted many of the cool new features that are in the upcoming releases. The common threads of greater accessibility, closer collaboration and more automation were reflected time and again as Serena’s solutions continue to evolve as the premier solution for enterprises who are serious about release management.

The day closed with the traditional Partner Reception and the room was abuzz with talk about the exciting challenges ahead.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/09/off-and-running-at-xchange13/feed/0Serena xChange13 Day Two Wrap Uphttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/09/serena-xchange-day-two-wrap-up/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=serena-xchange-day-two-wrap-up
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/09/serena-xchange-day-two-wrap-up/#commentsWed, 18 Sep 2013 12:51:11 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=3085Day two at xChange picked up where day one left off with more excellent, informative and entertaining sessions. I spent most of my day in the Industry Trends & Hot Topics track. The track started with Damon Edwards giving some practical tips on getting started with DevOps in the enterprise.

I delivered a session on building your own DevOps tool chain. The goal of the session was to initiate discussion about what has been tried when building tool chains, what mix of home grown, open source and commercial software has been successful. There was a lot of interesting discussion with lots of grimaces and knowing smiles when I described my experience of moving from homegrown solutions to a commercial/open source tool chain. They, like me had been burned by the success of their home grown solutions so using commercial and open source tool chains was preferable.

I heard rave reviews of Dimensions 14, the new version of Dimensions CM scheduled for release next year. We have been demoing it at xChange and people are extremely impressed.

The day wrapped up with a great party with salsa dancing and lots of great discussions.

I suspect there may be a few headaches on Wednesday morning as people were having a great time.

I’m really looking forward to Wednesday. In case you missed them, you can watch video recordings of all the general sessions at http://ser.so/x13videos.

Serena President and CEO Greg Hughes presented the following honorees this morning on the main stage at xChange13, our global user conference in Miami. Every year these awards go to customers who have taken their Serena solutions to new levels of use that far exceed the Serena engineering team’s expectations.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/09/douggie-winners-announced-at-xchange13/feed/1New Enterprise-Class Features in Serena Release Automationhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/09/new-enterprise-class-features-in-serena-release-automation/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=new-enterprise-class-features-in-serena-release-automation
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/09/new-enterprise-class-features-in-serena-release-automation/#commentsTue, 17 Sep 2013 13:48:07 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=3018We are proud to announce the latest update to Serena Release Automation (SRA). Advancements have been made in several key areas:

Ease of use

Cloud ready

High availability

Self service

Scalability

Integration

You can read the press release for an overview of all of the new features in SRA (screenshot above). Here are three areas I am particularly excited about.

Ease of use

Ease of use is an area where application release automation solutions have been too complex. In this release, we have embarked on a UI refresh, starting with a task-based UI. The menu structure has been simplified and the UI doesn’t lose context when switching between tasks, which can be a significant time saver. There are also quick links to recently used application pages. The end result is a significant decrease in the ramp-up time for new SRA users.

High Availability

A differentiator in the world of Application Release Automation (ARA) is High Availability (HA). While HA has been common in other areas such as database servers, high availability has been lacking in ARA solutions, primarily because existing solutions have been focused on team level use cases. When embarking on an enterprise-wide application release automation initiative, availability of the SRA server is critical. Failure no longer affects deployments at a team level. If the application release automation server goes down in the enterprise, multiple complex deployments could be impacted.

With SRA the automation server can be configured in a cluster. This not only ensures that the server is always available but also that servers are hot swappable, which allows for in-place upgrades, further reducing downtime.

Security

We aligned security privileges with enterprise-class security standards. In contrast, competing ARA products require the use of elevated security privileges, like being required to run as root. Enterprise adoption will be even easier than before since security exceptions don’t have to be granted anymore.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/09/new-enterprise-class-features-in-serena-release-automation/feed/0DevOps On Day One of xChange13http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/09/devops-at-day-one-of-xchange-2013/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=devops-at-day-one-of-xchange-2013
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/09/devops-at-day-one-of-xchange-2013/#commentsTue, 17 Sep 2013 02:58:00 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=3006Day one of xChange13 has come to an end and what an awesome day it was. The highlight of my day was the afternoon general session speakers. Damon Edwards presented a fantastic session on The DevOps Advantage. Unlike most DevOps sessions I have seen in the past, this session hit the bullseye for explaining the benefits of DevOps in the enterprise. Looking around the room there were many people taking notes and I know Damon had some great conversations with people later in the day.

After Damon’s presentation the room was enthusiastically waiting for the DevOps panel discussion. We had some excellent experts on the panel:

Eric Kunkel from MMA Technologies

Dave West from Tasktop

Damon Edwards from DTO Solutions

Greg Sikes from Serena Software

The panel was lively, with good chemistry between the panelists. The only major point of contention was DevOps vs. NoOps, which started a great discussion on what NoOps really is. The point was successfully argued that NoOps doesn’t mean not having Ops skills in an organization. It isn’t realistic for Dev to take over the role of Ops people, and companies that have tried generally fail quickly. The benefit of failing quickly is being able to course correct quickly and then something close to NoOps begins to happen.

If you want to use the term NoOps, then I think it really means that there isn’t a separate Ops team. Teams are truly cross functional, containing both Dev and Ops expertise. Amusing banter around DevOps, OpsDev, BusOpsDev ensued and further reinforced many points Damon made in his presentation.

On day two, both Damon and Dave are presenting breakout sessions and I, like many others, can’t wait to hear what else they have to say.

Finally, a big thank you to everyone who presented sessions today, I think it is safe to say that everyone learned something new and had a fun time doing so.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/09/devops-at-day-one-of-xchange-2013/feed/0Time for a ChangeMan: A New Automated Migration Utilityhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/09/time-for-a-changeman-a-new-automated-migration-utility/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=time-for-a-changeman-a-new-automated-migration-utility
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/09/time-for-a-changeman-a-new-automated-migration-utility/#commentsWed, 11 Sep 2013 18:02:43 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2994When your old technology prevents you from running your IT department the way you want, it’s time for a change. But so much of what we have is so deeply ingrained into all our systems, processes and reporting. That’s why we have created an automated migration utility that can move you from your old mainframe software change and release solution to the most modern and advanced solution from Serena.

It has never been more critical to have control and visibility in your release management infrastructure than it is today. Managing and balancing the risk and velocity of change is one of the top tasks an IT function has to provide. The business expectations of IT and the demand for controls require that we put in place advanced solutions that monitor what we are doing and ensure the audit trails are there for verification. Most of all, we want the technology to accelerate what we do while, at the same time, improve the quality and reduce the risk.

Change, configuration and release management systems designed in the 1970’s cannot meet the 21st century expectations. Serena’s ChangeMan ZMF (see picture above) continues to be at the forefront of mainframe software change and release management. Uniquely, it supports mainframe development, irrespective of where the developer is, and allows for deployment to all the mainframe execution environments.

So how do you make the change from your current solution to ChangeMan ZMF? A simple answer is our automated migration utility. The utility will migrate your existing inventory of source code, including all the versions and relationships, and will load them into the ChangeMan baseline libraries. It takes just a few minutes for each application. The utility will also report on errors it finds, including missing components, duplicate components and junk components.

Meet us next week at our global user conference, xChange13, in Miami and we’ll show you exactly how this works. Register now!

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/09/time-for-a-changeman-a-new-automated-migration-utility/feed/1Why Serena Customer MetLife Will Attend and Speak at xChange13http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/09/why-serena-customer-metlife-will-attend-and-speak-at-xchange13/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=why-serena-customer-metlife-will-attend-and-speak-at-xchange13
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/09/why-serena-customer-metlife-will-attend-and-speak-at-xchange13/#commentsMon, 09 Sep 2013 23:00:27 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2978For me, one of the most wonderful parts of xChange, Serena’s annual global user conference, is catching up with the attendees I see year after year.

Before each xChange, I check in with a few customers to find out what they are thinking and hoping to hear, and what news they have to share. It helps me to get the tone of the conference right and to guide the mainstage and breakout speakers in preparing their content.

Michael Bailey of MetLife is one of the customers I like to check in with. I first met Michael in 1997. He is a long-time Serena customer (25+ years!) and is passionate about the critical role that Change, Configuration and Release Management plays in modern IT organizations.

Before xChange was xChange

I thought I’d share our conversation from last week. We were reminiscing when Michael reminded me that the conference wasn’t always called “xChange,” which is something I’d forgotten. He told me he remembered how it was “the exceptional opportunities the Serena User Conference provided for attendees to speak directly with those persons who were and are still directly responsible for Serena’s products and solutions.”

For me, too, that is a real benefit of xChange. So many of our solutions are still being authored by the creative talents that created them 10, 15, even 20 years ago. That continuity extends, like in Michael’s case, to the customers. And for those Serena folk like me, xChange allows us to validate our latest ideas with the people who know our solutions the best.

Michael also told me that the “opportunity to network and discuss and share solutions amongst customer conference attendees” was, for him, “invaluable.” We’ve heard this from other customers too, which made for an easy decision to change the user conference name to “xChange” in 1999.

The Value within the Technology

When asked why he had chosen to present this year, Michael said that he wanted to give back what he had learned and offer some “easy, user- (and administrator-) friendly, practical customizations to the base ChangeMan ZMF product, while also sharing and recommending some customizations standards, well, really guidelines, … [for] … customers either initially installing or upgrading.” He said, in the true spirit of xChange, he wanted to pass on “the value within the technology.”

We talked about Michael’s role and how he is using Serena solutions at MetLife. Michael was eloquent about how technology helps him do his job:

“ChangeMan ZMF is absolutely essential to MetLife’s change management processes. It is the vital foundation, supporting almost, if not, all mainframe business application software activities. Constant 7×24 availability of its functions is imperative, and MetLife management, from all data-center interested areas, including internal and external audit, depend upon its effectiveness.”

Not Just One Thing

With so much experience and so many conferences attended, I wondered if Michael still had just one thing he wanted to get from this year’s user conference, xChange13. His answer didn’t surprise me. As always, Michael’s zest and humor shone through: “Gosh, just one thing?” he said and continued, “There are really so very many which come almost instantly to mind! Learning more about Serena’s products, current strategy and future direction; continued networking and solution sharing with Serena employees and customers; and, of course, also the certain-to-be-fun events, which are part of every Serena User Conference.”

I couldn’t have put it any better.

See you in Miami, Michael. And I’ll see you all there, too.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/09/why-serena-customer-metlife-will-attend-and-speak-at-xchange13/feed/0DevOps Excitement at Serena xChange13http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/09/devops-excitement-at-serena-xchange13/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=devops-excitement-at-serena-xchange13
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/09/devops-excitement-at-serena-xchange13/#commentsMon, 09 Sep 2013 15:00:21 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2953Our global user conference, xChange13, is about a week away and we’re all extremely excited and busy making sure that attendees have an amazing show. I’m primarily focused on the Industry Trends and Hot Topics track and we have some great content.

We are fortunate to have Damon Edwards of DTO Solutions presenting a keynote and breakout session. Any lingering doubts you may have about DevOps being a fit in the traditional enterprise should be laid to rest after attending Damon’s sessions. Damon will educate you on value stream mapping, timeline analysis and waste analysis, which will help you navigate your way through complex enterprise DevOps initiatives.

At xChange13 we’ll also discuss how to use Serena’s solutions with other commercial and open source software to build DevOps tool-chains that work in your environment, making use of existing investments you have made.

In addition to DevOps and release management content, many other topics will be covered. Head on over to the xChange13 website and take a look at the agenda. There’s still time to register. If you are going to xChange13, I look forward to talking to you about DevOps and release management and hearing your wonderful tales of challenges, successes and future dreams.

Updated messages for usability, addition of new messages, JCL and parameter file clean-up

LBI=YES default

Support for IBM’s Large Block Interface

To obtain the latest release and documentation for StarTool IOO, please go to the Download section of the Support Website and choose “StarTool IOO 3.1.5″ release. Customer login is required to access the site.

Alternatively, you can go to www.serena.com/support, click the “My Downloads” tab, then select “StarTool IOO” in the “Please Select Product” drop-down box.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/09/serena-startool-ioo-3-1-5-is-available/feed/0The “xChange-ing” of Release Management Tips at xChange13http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/09/the-xchange-ing-of-release-management-tips-at-xchange13/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-xchange-ing-of-release-management-tips-at-xchange13
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/09/the-xchange-ing-of-release-management-tips-at-xchange13/#commentsWed, 04 Sep 2013 17:15:19 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2925While preparing for xChange13, Serena’s global user conference from September 16-18, I happened to check in with one of Serena’s key release management partners. When I spoke with Eric Kunkel of MMA, he told me his best release management tip and what he hopes to gain from xChange13 this year. Here is our conversation:

KP: So tell me, Eric, when did you attend your first xChange conference?EK: It was two years ago in Las Vegas.

KP: But you’ve been working with Serena’s products long before that?EK: Yes, that’s right. I’ve been working with Serena products as a Customer and Partner for over 7 years.

KP: Your company, MMA, specializes in release management; how did this get to be so important to IT these days?EK: Having a predictable, repeatable, and standard process that the development and business units can rely on is essential. Without that, we can’t deliver the fixes, enhancements and new functionality to their consumers of our goods and services.

KP: You are a release management expert; what is the one best practice you’d like to see everyone adopt?EK: Standardization! And it has to be from the lowest level of OS configuration and set-up all the way to how configuration files are handled for deployments. It has to pervade build management (the code/compile/test cycle), processes (like having an enterprise release schedule), even how we define and manage deployment windows (for both non-production and production environments alike).

KP: You’ve often told me that automation of releases is essential; what is the best way to do that?EK: Automation will drive standardization. There’s a saying I heard, which I now use repeatedly: “people are nice and computers are honest.” What that means is … a person might just fix an issue to keep the project moving forward for the greater good. That one issue can turn into 20 issues known only by that engineer. Computers are binary: it either passes or fails. Computers highlight the failures so they can be resolved and everyone adheres to the standard.

KP: I like that. I think I am going to use that too! What do you want to learn more about on your trip to xChange13?EK: There are two main areas I will be focusing on. I will be looking to see how the Serena Release Management products are evolving to support the needs of our clients. The other area of focus, the “xChange-ing” if you will, will be to talk to the other attendees to try and understand the current pain points of our customers. I really want to learn if there are new pain points emerging, besides the big three of visibility, traceability, and automation.

KP: This has been great, Eric. Thanks a lot. See you in Miami!EK: Take care, Kevin. Try and improve those jokes this year.

Plenty of enterprise customers were in attendance and there was a great session on Puppet Enterprise at Scale by Benjamin Irizarry of Bank of America, which is a good example of how infrastructure as code initiatives are no longer confined to start-ups.

DevOps and Continuous Delivery were hot topics, with an excellent session by Eric Shamow of Puppet Labs on Continuous Delivery. View the presentation.

The one thing that stood out at PuppetConf is that process orchestration is still a big problem, as illustrated in Eric’s demo. Using Jenkins plus plugins makes for a simple demo for Continuous Delivery but it doesn’t change the fact that CI tools are build-centric and there is much more to a release than the output of a build. Eric did not suggest that using Jenkins to drive a continuous delivery pipeline was good for production, just that it made for an easy demo.

The lack of a good orchestration framework is something that we frequently hear from prospects and customers with release management problems. Serena Release Control is a key piece of a modern release management solution, providing auditability, visibility and control of a release process, and integrating with commonly used tools in both the Dev and Ops space. This visibility and auditability is possible because in Serena Release Control everything flowing through the system isn’t a build. We orchestrate releases, capturing all of the data that is associated with a release and reporting on it in the context of a release. CI tools form a critical part of a release management process; they just aren’t a good choice for orchestrating your release process. See how Serena Release Control works within our release management solution.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/08/wanted-a-good-release-process-framework/feed/1Back to School at ISU’s Troxel Hallhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/08/back-to-school-at-isus-troxel-hall/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=back-to-school-at-isus-troxel-hall
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/08/back-to-school-at-isus-troxel-hall/#commentsWed, 28 Aug 2013 15:00:50 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2905It’s back-to-school season! Although I’m way past my college days, I wouldn’t mind enrolling at Iowa State University (ISU) just to see what it’s like attending class in Troxel Hall (pictured, courtesy of Iowa State University), a new state-of-the-art teaching auditorium that will be dedicated this week. The building will be used for entry-level chemistry classes and is one of the most sustainable on campus (the roof of the building has growing vegetation). With swivel chairs, the latest education technology, and wireless portals, Troxel Hall is equipped to be a collaborative learning environment.

The new auditorium is named after Serena Software Founder and ISU Alumnus Doug Troxel. He heads up a family, non-profit organization, the Change Happens Foundation, which donated $5 million to ISU for the construction of Troxel Hall. This is so amazing and such a wonderful gift back to the community. I read these comments by Mr. Troxel on a LinkedIn user group:

“It is my way of giving back to those who helped me find my career. As a senior at ISU in 1966, I thought I was going to be a math or physics teacher. Then, my advisor suggested I might like this new-fangled technology called Fortran. He assisted me in crossing college boundaries to the Engineering Department where I took this very first class offered. We had to punch our own cards and stack them in trays for one submittal per day and live with whatever the compiler determined.

The industry has come a long way since then but I never forgot how much that one little decision to go outside my comfort zone counted.”

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/08/back-to-school-at-isus-troxel-hall/feed/0SHARE Answers for Mainframe Release Managementhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/08/share-the-release-management-answers/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=share-the-release-management-answers
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/08/share-the-release-management-answers/#commentsMon, 26 Aug 2013 16:37:48 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2894Each year Serena attends the SHARE mainframe conference. This year it was in Boston and was very well attended. Our booth (pictured) was the center for some pretty hard core conversations about the role of the mainframe in enterprise release management. Over the course of three days we got to talk with many release practitioners, release customers, release vendors and release gurus. Some pretty consistent messages came out of these conversations, which I want to “share” (pun intended) with you.

Enterprise release management is a major IT focus area.

There are too few resources devoted to enterprise release management.

Doing mainframe release management off the mainframe is becoming an increasingly important capability.

Most of the current toolingisn’t keeping pace with modern release management needs and best practices.

The business wants enterprise release management and they want visibility into what is happening.

About three-quarters of the people I spoke to had some initiative to address synchronizing mainframe and non-mainframe releases. More than half said they were unhappy with the old tools they were using.

One visitor to the booth went as far as to say, “I go out of my way to avoid using ’name of solution.’ It slows everything down; everyone hates it but we can’t replace it because it’s wrapped around everything else.” We showed him the new migration utility we have developed that automatically moves all the repository artifacts from one repository into ChangeMan ZMF and he was impressed. Enterprise release management teams do not have to stick with their current solution any longer.

Another hot topic at the booth, one my colleagues from our mainframe solutions architect team spent much time demoing, was about the importance of being able to synchronize releases across projects. Frequently, these days, our releases comprise of components for the web, and mobile, and mainframe, and communications and big-data and we have to make sure they are all ready to be installed together. This usually results in long weekends in the office by 10’s, even 100’s, of people at once. With the introduction of the new Serena Mainframe Connector, it is now possible to synch your projects across the heterogeneity of platforms, methodologies and time zones.

You can see all these great technologies at xChange13, Serena’s global user conference, which is right around the corner. Come and join the exchange about what you think enterprise release management should look like and learn from your peers about their best practices and cool solutions to the most pressing issue in IT today.

SHARE 2013 was a great conference and gave me lots to think about. Of course, next year is going to be quite the show as we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the mainframe!

See you in Miami for xChange next month.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/08/share-the-release-management-answers/feed/0Register for xChange13 Before Discounted Room Rate Expires On Friday!http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/08/register-for-xchange13-before-discounted-room-rate-expires/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=register-for-xchange13-before-discounted-room-rate-expires
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/08/register-for-xchange13-before-discounted-room-rate-expires/#commentsTue, 20 Aug 2013 22:55:29 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2882xChange13, Serena Software’s global user conference from September 16-18, is at the legendary Eden Roc Miami Beach. It sits between Biscayne Bay and the Atlantic Ocean, so attendees will be able to enjoy both a beach-front and bay-front location.

Historically, the Eden Roc has been home to artists and celebrities from all over the world and was completely renovated in 2011. With 600 hotel rooms and a modern, accessible conference center, xChange13 will be the only event happening at the Eden Roc over the week of September 15.

Even sweeter, we have secured a room rate of $159 per night at this iconic resort for the duration of your xChange13 stay, and the resort fee has been waived. The xChange13 special rate of $159 per night ends Friday, August 30. So, if you haven’t registered for the conference, now is the time! After Friday, rooms may not be available and prices will likely be much higher.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/08/register-for-xchange13-before-discounted-room-rate-expires/feed/0Using Serena Release Automation and Infrastructure as Code Tools to Build Your DevOps Automation Solutionhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/08/using-serena-release-automation-and-infrastructure-as-code-tools-to-build-your-devops-automation-solution/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=using-serena-release-automation-and-infrastructure-as-code-tools-to-build-your-devops-automation-solution
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/08/using-serena-release-automation-and-infrastructure-as-code-tools-to-build-your-devops-automation-solution/#commentsTue, 20 Aug 2013 21:55:49 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2871I recently read a fantastic article by Jens Segers on infrastructure as code. I’m already a big believer in infrastructure as code and agree with Jens that it doesn’t matter which tool you use as long as you strive to have an infrastructure as code initiative.

That leads to an interesting question. Where do infrastructure as code tools such as Puppet or Chef fit into the picture if you are using Serena Release Automation (SRA)? To me these tools are great for operating system configuration and generic stack provisioning, which just happens to fit in perfectly with SRA. I see infrastructure as code being used as part of an SRA process as follows:

SRA has integrations to commonly used virtual machine provisioning solutions, which are easily integrated into an SRA process. Use the integrations to spin up virtual machines as needed.

For each VM that is provisioned, use Puppet, Chef or some other tool to configure the OS; install the stack that you need and do basic configuration.

By using SRA and Puppet/Chef in this way, each tool is playing to its strength, allowing for an effective deployment automation solution both when designing and maintaining the solution and at runtime.

If you want to talk more on this topic, I’ll be at PuppetConf later this week on August 22 and 23. Contact me via Twitter: @jonathan_thorpe.

Extends integration of Release Automation into the SBM-powered processes

You can read the detailed release notes for SRA on the Serena Support website.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/08/serena-release-automation-4-5-1-is-available/feed/0Serena and Tasktop Team Up to Provide More Value to ALM Toolshttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/08/serena-and-tasktop-team-up-to-provide-more-value-to-alm-tools/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=serena-and-tasktop-team-up-to-provide-more-value-to-alm-tools
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/08/serena-and-tasktop-team-up-to-provide-more-value-to-alm-tools/#commentsWed, 14 Aug 2013 21:14:14 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2840Serena has entered into a strategic relationship with Tasktop Technologies where our joint solutions will be extremely valuable to customers that want to integrate SBM with third-party ALM environments.

Our customers need Serena solutions to work seamlessly with other tools in the ALM ecosystem. Integrating with Tasktop allows us to offer those connections without having to build and maintain every one of those connectors ourselves, so it’s the perfect win-win combination!

The initial release of our SBM connector for Tasktop is expected by the end of September. It will cover most of the basic use cases for browsing work items in SBM from within the IDE. Plus, users will be able to keep SBM-hosted work items in sync with other supported ALM systems using Tasktop Sync. We expect to deliver a follow up connector release towards the end of 2013, which will complete the full targeted functionality. Stay tuned for more details! See the Serena/Tasktop Partnership story in eWeek.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/08/serena-and-tasktop-team-up-to-provide-more-value-to-alm-tools/feed/3Post-Agile2013 Thoughts: DevOps Key to Evolution of Agilehttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/08/post-agile2013-thoughts-devops-key-to-evolution-of-agile/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=post-agile2013-thoughts-devops-key-to-evolution-of-agile
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/08/post-agile2013-thoughts-devops-key-to-evolution-of-agile/#commentsMon, 12 Aug 2013 18:29:45 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2828Last week I had the pleasure of working in the Serena booth at Agile2013 (me and a Shania Twain look-alike in picture to the right). While there were quite a few booths, some very creative, it was a fairly low energy expo area. That doesn’t mean we didn’t have some great conversations.

Agile2013 had a DevOps track. There were plenty of people who stopped by our booth who wanted to learn more about DevOps. They were from many different industries, which is what I would expect.

The general consensus seemed to be that while agile methodologies had resulted in significant benefits to organizations, there is still more work to be done and DevOps has a key part to play in the evolution of agile development shops.

Finally, our partnership with Tasktop also generated some buzz. In the coming months, Serena customers will see some awesome benefits from the partnership as we expand our integration capabilities further.

I’d like to say a big thank you to all who stopped by the booth. We are excited to present Serena’s latest innovations to you over the next few months. Stay tuned for upcoming webcasts to learn more.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/08/post-agile2013-thoughts-devops-key-to-evolution-of-agile/feed/0Your DevOps Solution: Mixing Open Source and Commercial Softwarehttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/08/your-devops-solution-mixing-open-source-and-commercial-software/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=your-devops-solution-mixing-open-source-and-commercial-software
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/08/your-devops-solution-mixing-open-source-and-commercial-software/#commentsWed, 07 Aug 2013 19:27:13 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2808I’m going to open with a fact that should hopefully be obvious: Few organizations have a completely manual software release process.

I can imagine you saying things like “Duh! So what? What’s your point?”

The fact that partial solutions to software release problems are already in place poses an interesting problem for software vendors. Some vendors pursue a policy of attempting to replace existing tools with their own products. Others, including Serena, believe in co-existing with and adding value to solutions they have already invested time and effort in using.

A strategy of co-existence between commercial software vendors is not new. A problem often presents itself culturally when open source enters the equation. Those of us that use open source solutions tend to be rather passionate about them, and I count myself amongst those people. The cultural problem that presents itself is that some people are “open source purists.” In this sort of situation there is a heavy bias to using a combination of open source and homegrown software. While this is great in theory, the fact is that there are only a relatively small number of companies that have the combination of the right number of staff and the right skillset to pull this off.

For most organizations complementing open source and homegrown software with commercial solutions makes sense, but when and how?

In the enterprise, the flow of information can be extremely complex. Gathering this information, presenting a unified view of the information and using it to influence behavior in a workflow is a difficult task. For example, human and computer processes need to be modeled and many systems need to be integrated.

A holistic, process-based approach, handling the flow of information between systems using integrations, is an area where commercial software can add significant value on top of open source and homegrown solutions.

So how do you get started, what should you look for in a vendor when mixing open source and commercial software?

Look at the list of integrations to other tools that the vendor provides.

Does replacing part of a vendor stack with open source lead to significantly reduced capabilities in the vendor solution?

Is there an API so that integrations can be extended to suit your needs?

When selecting open source solutions to co–exist with other solutions:

Ensure that the tool has either a command line interface or, better yet, an API.

How active is the community, are enhancement requests and bug fixes actively worked on?

Is it possible to export data easily and backup configurations and data?

I’ll continue to blog about this topic and others related to DevOps. So I encourage you to subscribe to the Serena Blog and catch all upcoming posts.

Hot off the press is the new xChange13 brochure with full agenda and details of all 70 breakout sessions. You’ll find abstracts for the technical sessions, industry trends presentations and customer case studies.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/08/xchange13-full-conference-agenda-now-available/feed/0Enterprise Release Management: the Top 10 Myths (part two)http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/07/enterprise-release-management-the-top-10-myths-part-two/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=enterprise-release-management-the-top-10-myths-part-two
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/07/enterprise-release-management-the-top-10-myths-part-two/#commentsWed, 31 Jul 2013 18:40:43 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2779Last week we looked at the crazy things people insist are the lore of Release Management. This week we continue to highlight so called “truths” and debunk them. My goal here is to put you in charge of determining what Release Management is. After all, you’re the one on the hook for making it happen!

5: Not every change needs to go through the release management process – wrong!

Every change needs to go through some process of verification (testing) and approval. However, it doesn’t necessarily mean that every change goes through the same process. Emergency fixes need a fast-track process with minimal stage gates and approvals. Major releases need more rigorous processes and complete stage gates.

Imagine if there were no air traffic controllers (ATC’s): would the free-for-all that ensues be good for on-time departures and arrivals, would it be safe, would stakeholders be happier, would it be quicker? Of course not. In fact, the point of ATC is to improve the throughput of flights to maximize the use of the runways. The same is true of release management. Without the infrastructure in place, you will never be able to deal with the volume of changes, the complexity of the dependencies between releases and the competing needs of the many stakeholders. With the right release management solution, you can increase the number of releases you deploy, improve control and governance, eliminate errors and downtime and do it with fewer resources.

3: We cannot make our releases any smaller – wrong!

A major reason why release management has become more complex is because the size of the releases has increased to a point now where they are often bigger than the original system they are based upon. This size means that the releases are very difficult to test and the inter-dependencies of other changes in other projects in the release make it nearly impossible to have any confidence in the testing outcome. Many organizations are taking a leaf from the Agile-playbook and moving to smaller, incremental releases more often. By breaking the release into dependent and non-dependent changes, it improves the testability of the code and the deployment is no longer held up waiting for other changes. Also, moving to thematic releases, keeping the changes to a small area of the code base, improves the ability to test and deploy with confidence.

But many more releases cannot be achieved without automated infrastructure in place. One release manager told me that they were moving from 4 releases per year to 3 releases per year because “it is taking too long to test and deploy.” When I asked the business what they wanted, they told me “more stuff sooner.” The answer is not bigger releases less frequently; it is smaller releases more often. And that is only possible through automating release management processes.

2: The business wants us to change things less frequently – wrong!

No they don’t. What they want is that the changes are deployed more successfully. Think about your smart phone: you get updates every day; you have become the release manager on your own device. You now update without caring because you know the changes are small, unlikely to disrupt the functioning of your device and are, in short, safe. We need to get the business to have that same confidence in our releases. Small changes more frequently are easy for users to absorb, have a smaller impact, require little (if any) training, are easier to test and, generally, low risk. The business gets to prioritize the changes they want and constantly adjust those priorities almost up to the point we put things into production.

1: Developers won’t accept not having access to production– wrong!

With the requirement for the “separation of duties” now being the law, the very idea of anyone having access to the production area seems very 20th century. Still, in many organizations, for whatever historic reasons, many people have access to the production areas and they use this privilege wisely and carefully. But the time for this has to stop! Now! As we have seen, the addition of a layer of process automation improves the speed of the release process and improves the audit trail. In an emergency outage situation, the first question anyone asks is “what changed?” Unapproved changes, even those with the best of intentions, are often undocumented changes. Even if they are not the cause of the outage, the inconsistencies they represent hinder and delay the analysis and remediation of the problem. If someone needs access, then ensure there is a process to let them have it, with appropriate approvals and a mechanism to withdraw it when the need has gone away.

I hope you have enjoyed some of these thoughts. Please share your own debunking examples of the “rules” of release management.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/07/enterprise-release-management-the-top-10-myths-part-two/feed/3Awarding Is Rewarding at xChange13http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/07/awarding-is-rewarding-at-xchange13/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=awarding-is-rewarding-at-xchange13
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/07/awarding-is-rewarding-at-xchange13/#commentsMon, 29 Jul 2013 17:42:12 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2771Getting home from xChange13, Serena’s global user conference from September 16-18 in Miami, and telling your team that you got a “Douggie” might raise a few eyebrows. So it would be better if you used the official name: “The Serena Innovation Award.” These awards are presented every year to customers who have taken their Serena solutions to new levels of use that far exceeded what the Serena engineering team thought possible.

To win the award we are looking for three things:

Value: a measurable benefit to your organization

Creativity: using the solution in an innovative way to solve a business and IT issue

Click here to download the application form and send it to me no later than August 23rd. Finalists will be notified on August 30th and the winners announced on Day 2 of xChange13.

This year we are hoping that our founder and inspiration, Doug “Douggie” Troxel, will be presenting the awards.

See you in Miami for a rewarding and awarding time!

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/07/awarding-is-rewarding-at-xchange13/feed/0DevOpsDays Silicon Valley: Continuous Qualityhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/07/devopsdays-silicon-valley-continuous-quality/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=devopsdays-silicon-valley-continuous-quality
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/07/devopsdays-silicon-valley-continuous-quality/#commentsThu, 25 Jul 2013 00:08:27 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2760DevOpsDays Silicon Valley was the biggest DevOpsDays event yet. The event had a more professional feel than previous events I have attended. This is not to say the other events were unprofessional, just that the layout and facilities were in a more traditional conference setting.

Attendees from “enterprise” companies were out in force to learn more about DevOps and there was an excellent open space session about DevOps in the enterprise, which was well attended.

The one session that really stood out was Jeff Sussna’s (@jeffsussna) session on Continuous Quality, which was fantastic. Over the past few years, great advances have been made in the Dev and Ops spaces but QA has been somewhat overlooked. The shift in focus from Quality Assurance (which frequently means validation of fixes) to Quality Engineering sets the stage for Continuous Quality.

I agree with Jeff that QA engineers are customer advocates and should be brought into the design process as early as possible. However, as always, keep in mind that the way someone is measured influences behavior. I have witnessed people trying to influence a design so that it is easier to test, not easier to use. Fortunately, the move from Quality Assurance to Quality Engineering will result in the focus changing from simply verifying that a fix has been done to really being an evangelist for the end user.

This leads me to something that is key to success in a DevOps initiative. Incentives must be aligned. If QA is measured by the amount of defects that have been verified as fixed then they will prioritize that first. The same if Dev is tasked with making changes and Ops is tasked with ensuring stability; each will focus on meeting their own goals, which will frequently conflict. By ensuring that goals are aligned with business outcomes and are shared across teams, conflict will be reduced and Dev, QA and Ops can all focus on delivering quality products to customers faster.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/07/devopsdays-silicon-valley-continuous-quality/feed/0Enterprise Release Management: the Top 10 Myths (part one)http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/07/enterprise-release-management-the-top-10-myths-part-one/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=enterprise-release-management-the-top-10-myths-part-one
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/07/enterprise-release-management-the-top-10-myths-part-one/#commentsMon, 22 Jul 2013 21:02:02 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2748At least you can never say Release Management is boring! Wherever we turn today someone is ready to deliver an absolute truth about the subject. The reality is that Release Management cannot be defined in general terms; it cannot be bounded, except by actual practitioners. There is no hard-and-fast rule about any aspect of it. Yet we are all bombarded with strictures commanding us to do, or be, some idealized version of a Release Manager.

Here are my top ten myths (five this week, five next week) that I seem to spend most of my time debunking these days.

10: One process fits all – wrong!

“We need one process for all release management!” is the guiding principle of so many organizations that are trying to implement a modern release management infrastructure. The reality is that there needs to be many processes:

One main, high-level process that defines the major milestones (perhaps) that we measure our progress against, the “macro milestone” process.

And many minor processes that accommodate the various factors that guide each development team such as its technology, time-to-market pressures, risk aversion, development methodology and project complexity, the “micro milestone” processes.

And let’s not forget we need an emergency process for those patches that have to be fast-tracked through the system.

9: You need one repository – wrong!

Apart from the sheer impracticality of the statement, anyone who suggests that you can only do release management if there is one repository is just not trying hard enough. Of course, having one repository is easy to say – it’s just not easy to do. Migrating all your code from the developer’s repository of choice is error-prone and usually results in unwanted compromises over things like how many revisions can be kept. Retraining the team is expensive and re-tooling the team can be prohibitively costly. What you do need is the ability to coordinate the activities of the teams, irrespective of the repository they use. You need to be able to move the code from their repository to the test areas repeatedly and automatically and safely deploy to production. You don’t need to disrupt your development organization and spend money on solutions they will resent using.

8: You need one solution from one vendor – wrong!

No one vendor has the best-in-class solution for all of your release management needs. Who has the best repository technology, the best parallel development capabilities, or the best support for Agile or DevOps? These will always be a matter for conjecture and disagreement, of taste and negotiating skills. The point is that an organization needs to select the best tool for the job and needs to make sure all vendors’ tools work together. But beware; vendor-created, point-to-point, integrations are fragile. Ensure your vendor is exposing their API’s through web-services and that their integrations support your process, not their own.

7: Project status meetings are essential – wrong!

Project meetings are a monstrous waste of time and resources. One customer describes the weekly release meeting as their “million dollar meeting” as it requires 70 members of staff, including several very senior members, to be in attendance for more than 4 hours. Each person gets to speak but it is often little more than “I’m good.” Imagine the time and money that can be saved by eliminating meetings alone through the use of a good process-centric workflow tool that guides everyone on the team through their part of the overall process. Status meetings can now become about exceptions and only involve the stakeholders who are impacted by those exceptions. So, when you get a meeting invitation, we encourage you to just say ‘Decline.’

6 (and a biggy to end this week’s list): Release management is just about deploying the code – wrong!

Well, actually, that is called “deployment.” Release management has many definitions with regards to the scope of the lifecycle that it covers. One useful definition says that release management begins when the release is given a name and ends when the name is no longer used. For example “the fall marketing release” might start in planning long before any code is checked out or worked upon. Nonetheless, it now needs to be tracked, deployment windows identified in the calendar, the resources applied and so on. Whatever your definition of release management, your infrastructure should support your lifecycle from when you define the start point to where you define the end point. Don’t be sucked into some vendor’s definition.

Next week we will look at some more infamous myths about this most critical of topics.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/07/enterprise-release-management-the-top-10-myths-part-one/feed/2DevOps in the “Traditional Enterprise”http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/07/devops-in-the-traditional-enterprise/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=devops-in-the-traditional-enterprise
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/07/devops-in-the-traditional-enterprise/#commentsWed, 17 Jul 2013 19:35:12 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2738My expectations for Velocity 2013 were high, based on my experience at Velocity 2012. Once again, the folks from the Ops side of the house were out in force asking plenty of insightful questions. This year I signed up to host a “birds-of-a-feather” session (more commonly known as a BOF) on DevOps in the traditional enterprise. The session had good attendance; it was great to see interest from companies that have been around for a long time and don’t have their roots in high tech.

For the most part, agile adoption is ramping up and cultural changes that help companies be more responsive are already underway. A good example of this is developers sharing responsibility for systems once the systems are in production. It’s amazing what gets fixed when developers are on call. Having been part of a “SWAT” team in the past, I can attest that I wanted to make sure my areas of responsibility were as robust as possible before they got anywhere near production.

As the session went on, it became apparent that while there is plenty of information out there on DevOps for tech companies, there is little information to help traditional “brick and mortar” companies become more agile.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/07/devops-in-the-traditional-enterprise/feed/0Bob Pender Returns as Serena Software’s CFOhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/07/bob-pender-returns-as-serena-softwares-cfo/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=bob-pender-returns-as-serena-softwares-cfo
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/07/bob-pender-returns-as-serena-softwares-cfo/#commentsThu, 11 Jul 2013 22:07:10 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2732Exciting times at Serena! A hearty welcome back to Bob Pender as he returns to Serena Software as CFO! Bob was CFO at Serena for nearly 14 years until leaving about 2 years ago. He was heavily involved in taking Serena public in 1999, acquiring Merant in 2004 and the going private transaction with Silver Lake in 2006. Currently, Bob is working on the transformational process of a new Serena and is excited about the future direction. (More about this at xChange13, our global user conference from September 16-18 in Miami.) Everyone here is thrilled to continue to benefit from his finance and software business acumen. Read more about Bob Pender on our Management page.
]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/07/bob-pender-returns-as-serena-softwares-cfo/feed/0Please Release Me, Let Me Gohttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/07/please-release-me-let-me-go/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=please-release-me-let-me-go
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/07/please-release-me-let-me-go/#commentsWed, 10 Jul 2013 19:37:23 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2727Englebert Humperdinck sang “Please release me, let me go” in 1967. Some might say it is the anthem of xChange13, Serena’s global user conference from September 16-18 in Miami. While Mr. Humperdinck’s iconic silk shirts and Zapata mustache would be at home in Miami Vice, don’t expect to see me emulating his style at xChange13.

I will, however, reprise the refrain from his number one UK hit. Release management is at the heart of what we do every day. We are either preparing for a release, deploying a release or managing the consequences of the release (good or bad). We see numerous customers facing an increasing backlog of releases stacking up and business owners asking for their releases to be, well, released.

So “please release me, let me go” may well be the conference anthem.

On the xChange13 main stage we will hear from a number of important speakers with much to say on the subject:

The ITIL perspective: why ITIL best practices give critical guidance on what really needs to happen in release management

The DevOps perspective: why the move to DevOps is centrally about making release management a collaboration

The practitioner’s perspective: stories from real customers about what it means to implement enterprise release management from the mainframe to mobile

The solution creator’s perspective: how Serena design and development teams partner with customers to deliver the world’s foremost release management solutions

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/07/please-release-me-let-me-go/feed/0Enquiring Minds Can Talk to Serena Product Officers at xChange13http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/07/enquiring-minds-can-talk-to-serena-product-officers-at-xchange13/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=enquiring-minds-can-talk-to-serena-product-officers-at-xchange13
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/07/enquiring-minds-can-talk-to-serena-product-officers-at-xchange13/#commentsWed, 03 Jul 2013 20:30:24 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2715Several of you wrote after last week’s blog post and asked “what is a Product Officer?”

In January, our new CEO, Greg Hughes, asked what would be the most significant change we could make to how the company is run. The resounding answer came back: “Focus!” As so, in February, we created the new role of Product Officer in the company. All five product officers will be at xChange13, Serena’s global user conference from September 16-18 in Miami:

Each of us is tasked with making sure all the activities of development, support, marketing, sales, services and education for our product lines are working in the most efficient way possible. We are your champions internally; we drive your ideas and needs into the team and guide and direct them on your behalf.

The Product Officers are taking a keen interest in the breakout sessions at xChange13 and helping shape the content. They will be there to answer your questions and listen to your advice on where the industry is headed and where Serena should follow.

Contact us today if you have questions or if you want to meet up with us in Miami.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/07/enquiring-minds-can-talk-to-serena-product-officers-at-xchange13/feed/0Bringing DevOps to the Next Generation of IT Professionalshttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/07/bringing-devops-to-the-next-generation-of-it-professionals/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=bringing-devops-to-the-next-generation-of-it-professionals
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/07/bringing-devops-to-the-next-generation-of-it-professionals/#commentsWed, 03 Jul 2013 19:23:12 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2699Last week, Dave Nielsen (@davenielsen) ran a series of five classes on Cloud Computing for Mid-Pacific ICT’s California Community College Faculty Development Week. As part of the series, Dave invited me to lead the Cloud App Deployment Workshop, which covered DevOps in the cloud.

The faculty members were really engaged and got to work on manual deployments to the cloud. They experienced their own version of a “million dollar meeting,” where a large group of people were collaborating to deploy a release successfully. They then used Amazon OpsWorks cloud platform and saw how easy it was to deploy an application to the cloud when there was a concept of application and environment modeling provided.

It was great to work with a group of teachers who are passionate about giving their students real world skills and understanding of how those skills map to business requirements.

I’m extremely grateful that Serena was supportive of my participation as a volunteer at this event and I’m excited at the prospect of working with Dave again to present this class elsewhere.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/07/bringing-devops-to-the-next-generation-of-it-professionals/feed/0Meet With Serena Execs and Experts at xChange13http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/06/meet-with-serena-execs-and-experts-at-xchange13/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=meet-with-serena-execs-and-experts-at-xchange13
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/06/meet-with-serena-execs-and-experts-at-xchange13/#commentsThu, 27 Jun 2013 19:57:37 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2689Serena xChange13, global user conference from September 16-18 in Miami, is where you can meet our leadership team and ask the tough questions that have been on your mind. Talk to any or all of the following executives:

Doug Troxel, Founder and Board Member

Greg Hughes, CEO and President

Ali Kheirolomoom, SVP of Development

Peter Sianchuk, SVP of Support

Ritch Steffensmeier, SVP of Services

In addition, we will have product team leaders in full force, including the Product Officers, Product Managers and Project Leaders for each of the product lines.

We encourage you to sign up for a 1:1 session with Serena experts in the AnswerZone. As you’d expect, Serena technical team members will be there in their white lab coats (we are looking for Miami Vice lab coats with shoulder pads and cut-off sleeves this year). The AnswerZone is the most popular feature of xChange: it is the place where you can work closely with Serena developers, support engineers, pre-sales specialists and consultants on the challenges you face.

To meet with a Serena expert in the AnswerZone do any one of the following:

Once you’re registered for xChange13, go to the Collaboration Portal and schedule an appointment.

Arrange a time at the registration desk when you arrive in Miami.

Grab an expert when you see one at the conference!

Registration for this year’s conference is at an all-time high. So, make sure you book soon, as space in the conference hotel is limited.

See you at the beach, South Beach that is.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/06/meet-with-serena-execs-and-experts-at-xchange13/feed/0Agile Silos Prevent DevOps Harmonyhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/06/agile-silos-prevent-devops-harmony/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=agile-silos-prevent-devops-harmony
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/06/agile-silos-prevent-devops-harmony/#commentsThu, 20 Jun 2013 20:10:38 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2675Last week I presented a session at the Agile Development Conference West. A quick poll of the audience indicated that not one person in the room had heard of DevOps. This wasn’t the case of people not putting up their hands. We engaged in some good discussions throughout the session and the lack of DevOps knowledge was apparent.

There was one person in the room who works for a company that seems to be quite advanced in agile practices and supportive of automation. Feedback loops were tight. Communication between Dev and QA was adding value. But, there were still problems once software was to be deployed from QA to production. The usual challenges were to blame: different deployment methods, environmental differences, incorrect assumptions and so on – pretty much the norm for many organizations.

I explained a bit about DevOps, breaking down silos and some of the supporting tools available that could solve some of his immediate problems (for example Puppet or Chef). He really got the value of how engaging Ops earlier in the process and embedding Ops into the cross-functional agile teams would go a long way towards tackling a major area of pain.

My lesson from this is that I made an incorrect assumption. I assumed that those in development organizations doing agile successfully had likely heard about DevOps. To encounter people working in an agile silo was a real surprise to me. I usually keep in mind that many organizations working in DevOps don’t realize that what they are doing is even called “DevOps.” So, I am used to that conversation, but this was a good reminder that there is still a long way to go with DevOps awareness.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/06/agile-silos-prevent-devops-harmony/feed/2Master the First, Second and Third Ways of DevOpshttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/06/master-the-first-second-and-third-ways-of-devops/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=master-the-first-second-and-third-ways-of-devops
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/06/master-the-first-second-and-third-ways-of-devops/#commentsTue, 18 Jun 2013 00:14:41 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2653This week I had the pleasure of hearing Gene Kim speak about DevOps and release management again. Although I’ve seen Gene present multiple times, I always leave his talks with more insight than the previous time.

During this presentation, it was Gene’s description of “the three ways” that caught my attention. For those of you who haven’t read Gene’s book, The Phoenix Project, the hero, Bill, is introduced to the three ways by a mysterious and sometimes frustrating mentor named Eric. With Eric’s help, Bill learns about the three ways.

The first way: Flow

Flow is understanding how work moves through your process, how it flows from left to right. The message that really stood out to me was not letting local optimization cause global degradation. I’ll readily admit I have been guilty of this in the past, partly because I felt trapped in a silo and had specific MBOs to meet, which of course were silo-specific. While I had supportive management, it was not always possible to work within company culture to work across silos.

The second way: Feedback

Frequently, when managing software releases I have seen information flowing from left to right, from dev to QA to production teams. There is minimal opportunity for feedback and, often, little time allocated to react to feedback when it is received. The second way stresses the importance of feedback, from right to left in a process. In order for this to be successful, the feedback loops should be short so that information is received in a timely manner. Continuous improvement must be integral to your process and the feedback loops need to provide information to feed the continual improvement.

The third way: Experimentation and Learning

Gene also talked about failing fast, which is part of experimentation and learning. Develop a minimally viable product (MVP), get feedback and if, for whatever reason, an idea isn’t working out, abandon it or change course quickly. In my experience, the longer you work on a project, the harder it is to convince people to change course, no matter how compelling the data proves that change is needed. Developing a minimally viable product is a great way to get feedback in a timely manner when there is still a high chance feedback will be acted upon.

My only gripe with the MVP model is that, all too frequently, teams seem to deliver a minimally viable product and then go onto the next big thing. So, what starts as a great MVP and is compelling to users, ends up as a product that does not meet expectations. Revisiting MVP’s to make sure that they remain competitive is as important as adding new features.

No matter what vertical market you are in, mastering the three ways will help your company become a high-performing organization. For more about the “the three ways,” check out Gene Kim’s The Phoenix Project. I highly recommend it.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/06/master-the-first-second-and-third-ways-of-devops/feed/0xChange13: The Heat Is On in Mainframe Developmenthttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/06/xchange13-the-heat-is-on-in-mainframe-development/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=xchange13-the-heat-is-on-in-mainframe-development
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/06/xchange13-the-heat-is-on-in-mainframe-development/#commentsMon, 17 Jun 2013 22:36:24 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2646They say that if you get enough chimpanzees together and give them access to enough computers, eventually they will make a Software Change, Configuration and Release Management solution as good as ChangeMan ZMF. I am not sure I can wait that long and I’ve seen how “Planet of the Apes” turns out. Of course, if you don’t have anyone working on improving your SCCM & RLM solutions, you’ll never keep up with the ever fascinating world of change we all live in. I can assure you that Serena’s development team is very busy.

In fact, they’re even busier in preparation of xChange13, Serena’s global user conference from September 16-18 in Miami. When xChange comes around each year, members of our development team vie for a ticket to attend. It is a very hard competition, indeed. With so much talent, all with some new and exciting technology to show off, selecting the dozen or so to attend is difficult. This year the contest is heating up, with developers eager to be the first to reveal the latest secrets from the Serena labs.

For our mainframe customers, there are some sensational new capabilities and critical advances in the areas you have been pushing for. The mainframe team will be there in force to answer your questions and immerse you in the improvements and progress we’ve made across the product line. Check out the complete list of mainframe breakout sessions.

Serena executives will be on hand at each event demonstrating release automation and release process control solutions that help solve the DevOps challenges faced by IT organizations today. We will also be running giveaways and launching surveys—so come on by for your chance to win and be heard!

Event details:

Gartner IT Infrastructure & Operations Management Summit
June 18-20 in Orlando, FL
Silver Sponsor
Booth #525
At Gartner IOM, we will be giving away the popular “Keep Calm and Release More” t-shirts, as well as running an extensive DevOps trends survey. Those of you who participate in the survey are automatically entered to win a Google Nexus 7 tablet.
For more information on this event or to register, click here.

O’Reilly Velocity Conference
June 18-20 in Santa Clara, CA
Silver Sponsor
Booth #321
At Velocity, we will also be giving away cool t-shirts, as well as giving away a Google Nexus 7 tablet at every break in the conference schedule.
For more information on this event or to register, click here. Use promo code DEVOPS20 to get a 20% discount.

DevOps Days Mountain View
June 21-22 in Santa Clara, CA
Silver Sponsor
At DevOps Days Mountain View, please look for Mark Levy and myself, or tweet us at @SerenaSoftware.
For more information on this event or to register, click here.

Hope to see you there!

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/06/come-visit-serena-at-the-gartner-it-infrastructure-operations-management-summit-oreillys-velocity-conference-and-devops-days-mt-view-in-june/feed/0Serena xChange13: Ready, Release, Repeathttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/06/serena-xchange13-ready-release-repeat/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=serena-xchange13-ready-release-repeat
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/06/serena-xchange13-ready-release-repeat/#commentsMon, 10 Jun 2013 20:25:34 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2622One way or another, we are all involved in building the content of the release, getting the release ready, putting the release out there, and taking care of it when it gets there. The major theme of xChange13, Serena Software’s global user conference from September 16-18 in Miami, is all about what it takes to be a world-class software release organization.

We are going to have expert speakers from the world of DevOps and IT service management, including Pink Elephant EVP George Spalding (Twitter: @gspalding11). We’ll take a deep dive into the best practices we can glean from ITIL’s Service Transition with one of the best speakers you will ever hear. And we will hear from your peers and colleagues that have implemented Serena Release Management solutions in their organizations and delivered massive benefits and success.

From the R&D side, our development teams will be showing off their latest innovations that will take release management to the next level on every platform from the mainframe to mobile and from the data center to the cloud.

As always, we will be acknowledging our customers for their innovation and excellence. If you have a good story to tell and want to receive recognition (and bragging rights back at your office), please give me a call (+1-650-224-1691 Pacific Time) or write to me at kparker@serena.com (any time!).

See you in Miami! If you haven’t registered yet, there’s still time to take advantage of the Early-Bird Pricing. Register now!

Crockett and Tubbs solved major Miami crimes in about 42 minutes of air time. At xChange13, Serena’s global user conference from September 16-18, the presenters have just 50 minutes to share their knowledge and wisdom so that you can solve your own technology challenges.

This week we announced most of the customer-led breakout sessions; with more to come next week. They are an incredible collection of sessions that take your product knowledge to the next level through real, practical examples and experiences.

Here are some of the highlights. I’ll have more next week:

From world-leading Abbott Labs: how to eliminate the paper-based bureaucracy in the organization.

From industry trailblazer Sungard: how small teams can be more agile and more effective rolling out new systems.

From renowned Kingman Medical Center: how to make the learning curve short, actionable and successful.

And the session I am looking forward to the most:

From celebrated Brighthouse Networks: how to automate process in every corner of the business.

As Sonny Crockett says, “Knowing the answers doesn’t make it any easier,” but talking to someone who has solved it already does make it so much easier. To be part of the xChange, register today while the special pricing is still available.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/05/how-xchange13-customer-speakers-are-like-crockett-and-tubbs/feed/0Serena Customer Portigon AG Optimizes Software Lifecycle with SBMhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/05/serena-customer-portigon-ag-optimizes-software-lifecycle-with-sbm/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=serena-customer-portigon-ag-optimizes-software-lifecycle-with-sbm
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/05/serena-customer-portigon-ag-optimizes-software-lifecycle-with-sbm/#commentsWed, 29 May 2013 20:57:24 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2595The recent Best Management Practice Congress 2013 (Bad Neuenahr, Germany) was a James Bond-inspired conference with the theme, “The (IT) World Is Not Enough.“ This is so fitting in today’s world of increasing demands on the business to produce more and release faster. And it leads to the question: Can IT keep up with such rapid growth?

Serena customer Portigon AG presented at the Congress on this topic and how Serena Business Manager (SBM) helped them with setting up a structured approach to optimizing their software lifecycles. Asif Mohammed Kahn and Joerg Hemmler of Portigon AG described their situation: a large number of developers, distributed teams, a continuously growing amount of releases, and a desired availability of 24/7. At this point, I noticed quite a few agreeing nods from the audience. They understood these challenges as well as others that were mentioned and are just as important: compliance, visibility, auditability, reporting, and availability.

Portigon was able to solve their problems in a very unique, but replicable way. First, they showed all requirements of a release in the form of an SBM report that is available as a Microsoft Excel list. Next, using SBM, all changed source code files of a release are summarized in Microsoft Excel. By means of extensive connectivity abilities – for example via Perforce interfaces for version management – all changes and information data are updated and synchronized continuously. Relevant release information, such as metadata, important library changes, etc., are integrated with Serena Business Manager via the P4 TT Gateway.

Portigon also relayed how their approval process improved because of SBM. Before a change goes live in production, it has to undergo two testing stages: the functionality test and the approval test. After the functionality test in the development environment, the requester gives his approval via Business Sign-Off. After the User Acceptance Test (UAT) in the integration environment, the requester gives the final approval. The audience was visibly taken by the idea that a sign-off can work fast, triggering the system without tedious Outlook e-mails. Simply via Serena Business Manager. It was great to see their amazed faces. For more about Portigon’s solution and success with SBM, take a look at their presentation from the event.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/05/serena-customer-portigon-ag-optimizes-software-lifecycle-with-sbm/feed/0Evolution of Agilehttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/05/evolution-of-agile/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=evolution-of-agile
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/05/evolution-of-agile/#commentsWed, 29 May 2013 15:00:18 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2585Our very own agile advocate and DevOps guru, Jonathan Thorpe, is set to deliver an insightful presentation at Agile Development Conference West in Las Vegas, focused on the ‘Evolution of Agile.’ He’ll speak on Wednesday, June 5th at 3:45pm PT.

Agile development has evolved into a lifecycle that not only affects IT, but the overall business as well. Forward-thinking enterprises recognize this and benefit from the software efficiency that agile development delivers.

In Jonathan’s session, he’ll describe the evolution of agile and discuss why enterprises are feeling growing pains as the agile methodology grows from the IT department to the business level. He’ll use real-world examples and explain how businesses can improve their agile success and how successful global enterprises are applying the principles of agile development beyond just software development to a level where it affects entire business groups.

If you’re in Vegas, come see Jonathan present and learn how agile methodologies can be applied to business analysis, release management and other key IT processes to ensure applications are being delivered to customers on time and on budget.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/05/evolution-of-agile/feed/0Improved Usability in Serena StarTool FDMhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/05/improved-usability-in-serena-startool-fdm/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=improved-usability-in-serena-startool-fdm
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/05/improved-usability-in-serena-startool-fdm/#commentsWed, 22 May 2013 21:07:56 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2575Serena StarTool FDM became Generally Available on April 30, 2013, just in time to announce at the recent Mainframe Virtual User Group (VUG). Mark Henderson from the StarTool Development Team presented the StarTool products roadmap and the roster of feature updates in StarTool FDM 7.7.2.

Improved DASD support:

Volume map (VMAP) command shows all areas of EAV

Dataset statistics (USAGE) command shows EAV-specific DSCBs

Allocate large PDSEs (>64k tracks)

Improved usability/serviceability:

Improved panel navigation

ZAP command improved to support larger CSECTs

PEDIT processes VSAM LDS more efficiently

HISTORY & DISASM commands use BINDER instead of module load, also perform better against PDSEs

Long name support in load module displays

MAP & HISTORY support new COBOL and PL/I compiler options

Additionally, Mark presented the roadmap for ChangeMan SSM and an overview of ChangeMan SSM 8.3.4.02, which became Generally Available on March 7, 2013 and is a release with fixes in the areas of:

Email notification processing

Master file data consistency

STC continuity

HFS tracking performance

We closed the VUG meeting with an overview of ChangeMan SSM 8.4. In this forthcoming release, ChangeMan SSM will expand its reach beyond App Dev with facilities geared towards systems management and ZMF-awareness, with the theme of operational integrity:

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/05/improved-usability-in-serena-startool-fdm/feed/0Serena Snags Bronze in the 2013 Network Products Guide Awardshttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/05/serena-snags-bronze-in-the-2013-network-products-guide-awards/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=serena-snags-bronze-in-the-2013-network-products-guide-awards
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/05/serena-snags-bronze-in-the-2013-network-products-guide-awards/#commentsTue, 21 May 2013 19:19:49 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2556 I am very pleased to announce that Serena’s Release Automation tool has recently been named a winner in this year’s Network Products Guide Awards in the Application Delivery category. This award showcases our continued charge as a leader in the adoption of Release Management and DevOps. This is the third consecutive year that a Serena solution has been a part of the awards finalists’ circle and comes on the heels of last year’s win with our IT Service Manager product.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/05/serena-snags-bronze-in-the-2013-network-products-guide-awards/feed/0Miami Ad-vice at Serena xChange13!http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/05/miami-ad-vice-at-serena-xchange13/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=miami-ad-vice-at-serena-xchange13
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/05/miami-ad-vice-at-serena-xchange13/#commentsFri, 17 May 2013 17:03:01 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2549It is not easy to be selected as a speaker for xChange, Serena’s annual user conference. I always feel sorry for the many excellent presentation ideas we have to turn away, but I am so excited to think about the ones that were chosen for xChange13 from September 16-18 in Miami. This year’s list is more impressive than ever before.

We have a bumper crop of customer presentations, which we’ll announce next week. These are my personal favorite sessions of the whole event and they cover every aspect of the application lifecycle. The Serena engineering teams will show off what’s cooking in the lab. I’ve seen some of the innovations and they will simply amaze you. Plus, we’ll have deep dives into the new capabilities of the latest Serena Solutions that will launch at xChange.

No matter what breakout track you decide to take at xChange, you’ll have at least 10 sessions to choose from. So, bring a colleague to get the most out of the conference. Here’s a glimpse of some of the tracks.

Application Development Solutions Track – Don’t miss the session about Continuous Integration and Release Best Practices.

DevOps and RevApps Track — We’ll show you how your Serena solutions can be at the heart of your DevOps strategy.

Serena Business Manager (SBM) Track — This track has the most customer-delivered sessions with real-world implementations that will inspire and astound.

Mainframe Track — I am particularly proud of the focus on the modernization of applications and the application development infrastructure.

There is so much to see and hear that I promise you this: every session will deliver practical advice you can use the day you get back from Miami.

And this year, for the first time in quite a while, I get to present one of the sessions too!

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/05/miami-ad-vice-at-serena-xchange13/feed/0New Features in Serena Software ChangeMan ZMF Client Packhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/05/new-features-in-serena-software-changeman-zmf-client-pack/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=new-features-in-serena-software-changeman-zmf-client-pack
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/05/new-features-in-serena-software-changeman-zmf-client-pack/#commentsWed, 15 May 2013 17:59:22 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2537In our recent Mainframe Virtual User Group (VUG) meeting, we highlighted the latest features in the ChangeMan ZMF Client Pack. John Skelton, Principal Developer from the ChangeMan ZMF Development team and frequent presenter at VUGs and the annual Serena Software xChange User Conference, stepped the attendees through an overview and an awesome demo of the latest and greatest ZMF Client Pack 7.1.3, which includes the following:

ZMF4ECL (Eclipse plugin):

Windows 8 support

Large Volume (EAV) support

Support for scheduled promotion requests

Improved filtering

ZDDOPTS – alignment with zDD client and support for RACF groups

zDD (Windows Explorer Interface)

Windows 8 support

Large Volume (EAV) support

Support for scheduled promotion requests

ZDDOPTS support for RACF groups

One of the questions that John was asked in the ensuing Q&A session was whether the ZMF Client Pack would honor ISPF customizations (such as changes to panels, panel-exits, etc.). John correctly answered “no.” As ISPF is a client that resides up on the System z mainframe, customizations are limited to that platform.

This brings me to the main point in this blog entry. As discussed in one of my previous posts, our customers are doing more with less, and the user community is expressing the need to facilitate off-platform development and test. Serena remains responsive to these needs. There are two areas that we consistently hear from our customers:

The first is around off-platform development — the Client Pack components do not recognize user-customizations to the ISPF component. What was needed — and what we’ve now provided is functional parity amongst all clients. In other words, all the functions available to the ISPF client should be equally available, regardless of whether the user is in ISPF, Eclipse, Windows, or executing our XML or Web Services. A user should never need to log on to TSO if they do not want to. Thanks to John, and many others on the ZMF and Sernet development teams, we have provided this functional parity as John demonstrated at the last VUG. Yet, we still have the issue of ISPF customizations not recognized outside of ISPF (i.e. Client Pack, Web Services, XML Services, etc.).

The second area is the upgrading from one release of ZMF to another. What sets ZMF apart is its exceptional level of flexibility and ability to tailor to the customer’s environment. This flexibility is accomplished mostly through customizations to ISPF components and, in other cases, user exits. A consequence of this flexibility is that the customizations need to be carried forward when upgrading to a new release, and we do hear this from our customers.

The team is working on a solution that addresses both of these issues. If user-customizations were encapsulated to an area that sits on top of the product, and there is that division between what Serena ships and what the customer “owns”, we have a two-fold benefit:

Customizations that are centralized are then accessible from any client (ISPF, zDD, Eclipse, our callable services).

It also provides a mechanism to lift-and-carry customizations from one release to the next, which renders the notion of managing all of the ISPF skeletons obsolete.

The R&D team is busy in their sandbox working up Pre and Post exit points at every major stop in the ZMF workflow. Additionally, the team is researching ways to encapsulate other customizations outside of the major points in the workflow and are experimenting with a few different options. Not only does this ensure that the clients all follow the same rules, but greatly facilitates product upgrades.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/05/new-features-in-serena-software-changeman-zmf-client-pack/feed/0Release Automation Is Not Enoughhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/05/release-automation-is-not-enough/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=release-automation-is-not-enough
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/05/release-automation-is-not-enough/#commentsTue, 14 May 2013 18:12:34 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2530Release automation is a hot topic. This is pretty exciting to witness since I have worked in the industry for a long time and crafted quite a few deployment solutions by hand. However, there may be too much focus on release automation and not enough on release management holistically. Pushing bits to servers with a small amount of process management around it is where most release automation tools stop.

Process management, visualization and traceability are all critical, especially as the number of releases increases. A release management solution, of which release automation is one component, must also have a concept of what a release is. A release is more than just a collection of builds. It includes change requests, scheduling, approvals and many other things.

Trying to add the concept of a release on top of a release automation solution that has no concept of release or a simplistic version of release is a lot of work. Furthermore, having to roll your own frequently results in auditability, traceability and visualization capabilities becoming more unwieldy, losing some of the value that a solution provides.

Without the right checks and balances, release automation provides an extremely effective vehicle for potentially releasing the wrong thing to production efficiently. You can talk to me more about this at the upcoming Velocity Conference from June 18-20 in Santa Clara, CA. I’ll be in the Serena booth. Register for the event, if you haven’t already!

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/05/release-automation-is-not-enough/feed/0DevOpsDays Austin Focused on Culturehttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/05/devopsdays-austin-focused-on-culture/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=devopsdays-austin-focused-on-culture
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/05/devopsdays-austin-focused-on-culture/#commentsThu, 09 May 2013 19:04:16 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2515Last week I was in Austin attending my second DevOpsDays event of the year and it had a very different feel to DevOpsDays London. It was the biggest DevOpsDays event yet with over 300 attendees and a reasonable amount of sponsors, Serena being one of them.

DevOpsDays Austin focused very much on culture, much to the frustration of some but I believe it is the right choice. Unless you are fortunate enough to be in an environment that has a culture perfectly suited to DevOps, then focusing on technology alone will probably end in disappointment.

My co-workers who attended DevOpsDays Austin last year tell me that there were more staff from larger enterprises attending this year, which tracks with the general uptake of DevOps in the enterprise. While DevOps is slowly gaining traction in the enterprise, I certainly see a lot of interest in tools to help bring DevOps to the enterprise. Tackling culture at an enterprise scale is something of particular interest to me and something that I continue to think about. There is no easy answer to cultural change at an enterprise scale, but it is great to see discussions in that area at DevOpsDays events.

Patrick Debois attended and gave a presentation on the future of DevOps. He even included the definition of a meme in his session and the description was quite surprising. Patrick always delivers great sessions and didn’t disappoint with this one.

The Ignite talks and Open Spaces were thought-provoking and full of useful information. A particularly interesting session was on monitoring. Jenny Yang and Toufic Boubez of Metafor Software facilitated this discussion, which was lively and informative. You can read Toufic’s blog post on the subject.

On the second day I presented an Ignite session. Let me tell you, they are much harder to prepare for and do than a regular speaking slot. My session on “DevOps when you can’t hire the A-Team” focused on breaking out of what I call the DevOps bubble and how to leverage open source and commercial software to achieve DevOps success.

Finally, thanks to the folks at Puppet Labs for getting me to participate in their 3PM push-up session! No photos were taken that I know of, and in all honesty, I’m okay with that!

I’m looking forward to DevOpsDays Mountain View. Hope to see you there.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/05/devopsdays-austin-focused-on-culture/feed/0Impressive Community at Puppet Camphttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/05/impressive-community-at-puppet-camp/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=impressive-community-at-puppet-camp
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/05/impressive-community-at-puppet-camp/#commentsTue, 07 May 2013 19:47:56 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2507Last week I was able to get the most out of my trip to Austin by attending Puppet Camp and then DevOpsDays. Puppet Camp was a high quality event with great sessions. The content was quite varied and really resonated with me. I’ve noticed that the Puppet community is undergoing phenomenal growth and I’m impressed with the level of community engagement. Initiatives such as ask.puppetlabs.com and Puppet Forge make community involvement easier than ever. A couple of highlights from the event…

@GrandmaHenri, a technical writer at Puppet Labs, presented a session on how to document modules on the Puppet Forge. This should keep the quality of submissions to Puppet Forge high and help people find the appropriate modules to use.

Adrian Thebo did a session on “Writing and Sharing Great Modules on the Puppet Forge” and provided good programming advice for all of the Puppet users in the room with or without a programming background. Acronyms like MDD (Mistake Driven Development) got a lot of sheepish grins and people readily admitted to testing Puppet code in production! I think everyone came away with ideas on how to improve what they were doing.

There were many other sessions that were just as excellent and a cut above what I’m used to seeing at these types of events. I’m looking forward to PuppetConf in August!

A big thank you to Dawn Foster (@geekygirldawn) for helping to organize an amazing event and for helping to build an awesome community. I hope to see everyone I met at Puppet Camp at PuppetConf in August.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/05/impressive-community-at-puppet-camp/feed/1Thoughts on ChefConfhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/05/thoughts-on-chefconf/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=thoughts-on-chefconf
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/05/thoughts-on-chefconf/#commentsTue, 07 May 2013 00:25:00 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2496I just got back from attending a few back-to-back events. One of which was ChefConf 2013. It was my first ChefConf and it was a really high energy event with a wide variety of speakers and attendees. I chose to focus on the sessions covering culture, but there were many great sessions.

The first memorable session was “Scaling systems configuration at Facebook,” presented by Phil Dibowitz from Facebook. A larger-than-life rock and roll guy if ever I saw one, Phil did an awesome session on why Chef was the appropriate tool for use at Facebook. I think Phil probably made Chef support staff cringe when he discussed “tweaking” the Chef libraries to meet his needs, but he did add a disclaimer that tweaking probably shouldn’t be done.

Glenn O’Donnell of Forrester Research presented what I would call a “feel good” session which described how important the skills of everyone at ChefConf are as the industry moves forward. Infrastructure as code is no longer a nice to have but a competitive advantage that we need to stay on top of.

Disney presented a highly polished, extremely interesting session on how Chef is used at Disney. One session highlighted potential problems with enterprises using open source solutions. A company had made several Chef Cookbooks and had not given any back to the community. Comments voicing frustration quickly erupted on Twitter.

The stats on Chef community growth were truly impressive; it has more than doubled in the past 12 months. You can read more about the momentum that Chef currently has on the Opscode Blog.

Finally, one thing was mentioned over and over and over again at most of the sessions I attended — The Phoenix Project by Gene Kim. Characters Eric, Brent, and Bill were referenced as if they were personal acquaintances of everyone. I suspect many people will also purchase and read The Goal, as it inspired Gene. I know I will.

I can’t wait for the next ChefConf or Chef meet-up. Hope to see you there!

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/05/thoughts-on-chefconf/feed/1The Value of Analyzing and Interpreting Datahttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/04/the-value-of-analyzing-and-interpreting-data/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-value-of-analyzing-and-interpreting-data
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/04/the-value-of-analyzing-and-interpreting-data/#commentsThu, 25 Apr 2013 18:39:22 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2484My favorite event of the year is the Defence Information Conference, held annually in the UK. It brings together the leading Ministry of Defence (MoD) and Uniformed Services IT executives to talk about a range of topics. This year’s theme was about “Valuing Information as an Asset.”

I was honored to give a brief keynote and chose the value of data interpretation as the topic. In a session I called “Being Evangelical about Data” I was inspired to talk about the difference between collecting data, analyzing data and interpreting data. You can find the presentation on SlideShare or view it to the right.

Like all military organizations across the world: the MoD is looking to improve the efficiency in the systems they use that support the missions they have. One significant change that has been implemented is a joint logistics force that delivers the food, equipment, spare parts, ammunition and everything that is needed in theaters of operation. As the Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines all use the same makers of equipment (such as the Apache Helicopter) it makes sense to have all the parts managed by one, new, service called the Joint Supply Chain (JSC).

The first question asked when all the inventory came under the control of the JSC was, “What is the value of the inventory managed?” The answer came back that it was about £40bn (about $64bn). Quite something, as this was not able to be calculated before.

So here we have Data giving Information. But further analysis showed that, while the MoD could tell how much the inventory was worth, they could not tell, for the most part, where it was located. And now we have Information giving Insight. And now, the next step in improving the logistical capabilities of the MoD, is to make inventory tracking much better.

My presentation took all of this to the next level and left the audience with one of my favorite quotes from a Serena customer in Chicago. Our customer implemented the Orchestrated IT approach across the entire development lifecycle from requirements through development and testing, into change and release management, and all the way to deployment. The director of the Change and Release Management team told me:

“I used to spend all of my time fighting fires… I now spend all of my time finding out who is starting them.”

During the breaks, many of the project leaders came to the Serena exhibit to talk about how they too can use process improvement and automation to give them control, repeatability and insight. It is so interesting to talk to customers about their organizations and their approach to developing and deploying applications. It is fascinating to have these discussions with members of our armed forces whose mission is complicated by deploying applications into the most hostile environments.

We thanked them for their service. We will be working with many of them over the next few months so that they too can get insight from their data.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/04/the-value-of-analyzing-and-interpreting-data/feed/0Embracing DevOpshttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/04/embracing-devops/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=embracing-devops
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/04/embracing-devops/#commentsTue, 23 Apr 2013 07:00:32 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2466Have you heard the news? Serena just launched a raft of new capabilities that help our customers embrace DevOps. Release automation targets now include VMware ESX and ESXi, plus Microsoft’s cloud platform Azure, to go along with an expansive existing set that includes Windows, Unix, Linux, Mainframe and Amazon’s cloud platform EC2. Developers have great new self-service capabilities, now including environment provisioning. And the capture and management of Change Request activity is darn near hassle-free.

Why is all this important? Because DevOps is a rapidly mainstreaming approach to speeding up the pace of application enhancement. Not just any applications, but mostly for Revenue Applications, those that customers use to directly transact with an enterprise. RevApps are fundamental to how many industries go to market now, so the ability to rapidly evolve them becomes the ability to stay agile in the market. Fail at that and not much else matters.

Serena has a long history helping enterprises with release management. We also have a longer history than most at helping customers with modern release automation, and in thinking about how to embrace DevOps. Our successful track record, combined with today’s announcement of the enhanced DevOps capabilities across Orchestrated IT 4.5, stands in contrast with recent announcements by CA Technologies and IBM. Those two behemoths just bought their way into DevOps, marking the starting point for their learning curve and integration efforts.

Meanwhile we at Serena are marching along, building on our lead and helping customers successfully embrace DevOps, releasing more and better all along the way.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/04/embracing-devops/feed/0How to Get Your Manager to Approve Your Ticket to xChange13http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/04/how-to-get-your-manager-to-approve-your-ticket-to-xchange13/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=how-to-get-your-manager-to-approve-your-ticket-to-xchange13
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/04/how-to-get-your-manager-to-approve-your-ticket-to-xchange13/#commentsMon, 22 Apr 2013 16:30:37 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2446As a release manager, CM manager, configuration manager, help desk manager, administrator, engineer, architect, project manager or analyst, one of the biggest challenges in attending any user conference is getting your manager’s approval. Some upper-level managers view conferences as an excuse for going out and having a good time. Therefore, you need to sell your manager on the value of user conference participation. Here are some helpful hints on getting the approval you need to attend Serena’s Annual Global User Conference, xChange13, this September.

The value and knowledge gained at xChange13 is difficult to replicate elsewhere. You’ll be able to address your specific questions with Serena support technicians, product experts and power users at the conference. Provide your manager with a written list of issues you hope to address and, if possible, list the specific technical sessions you plan to attend. Use this list to demonstrate the value of xChange to your company. You can view some of the sessions in the current xChange brochure.

Face-to-face interaction facilitates valuable information exchange and problem-solving. Talk to your Serena sales representative now about setting up meetings with specific Serena product owners, engineers and executives to resolve particular issues. Over 100 Serena staff will be at the conference. Many xChange attendees save hundreds of thousands of dollars from finding solutions to problems or new ideas to speed their organization’s growth. Consider your attendance at the conference as an investment rather than an expense, and explore your company’s education or training budget as a resource.

Boost productivity back at the office. Offer to host a “lunch and learn” upon your return to the office. Use the data you’ve obtained at xChange13 to educate your entire team or other cross-functional teams that are key to your business unit. Quantify the benefit: imagine if you can boost your productivity (or the team’s) by just 5%, a very conservative number. It would mean 100 hours per year per team member.

After the show, prepare a brief written report for your manager. Use this report to document the outcome of your meetings with Serena product owners, engineers and executives. Include additional information gained from conference speakers, other users, or Serena partners to supplement your summary of solutions for your company’s current problems and concerns. Don’t forget to work in the value of networking and the information you obtained on how companies are solving similar issues. You might consider writing portions of your summary as a blog or Twitter post.

Finally, remember that the best time to get permission to attend xChange14 is while the value of the 2013 conference is fresh in your manager’s mind. When you return from xChange13 in September, give your boss a heads-up on when xChange14 will be held and how much you are looking forward to building on the relationships you established this year.

Throughout this entire process, you will have educated your boss on the issues and concerns you deal with in your day-to-day responsibilities; demonstrated your own professionalism; and opened the door to continuing your education by attending xChange. If you haven’t already, begin the process described above with this email template request for manager approval so that we can look forward to seeing you in September!

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/04/how-to-get-your-manager-to-approve-your-ticket-to-xchange13/feed/0Eight Mistakes that Prevent DevOps Successhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/04/eight-mistakes-that-prevent-devops-success/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=eight-mistakes-that-prevent-devops-success
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/04/eight-mistakes-that-prevent-devops-success/#commentsThu, 18 Apr 2013 18:38:27 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2437I was inspired to write this article when I kept seeing organizations do exactly the opposite of what they should be doing to develop and deliver applications efficiently. Essentially, they weren’t practicing DevOps principles that would provide value to customers faster and more reliably. Check out the list of Eight Mistakes that Prevent DevOps Success, published on CM Crossroads, and make sure you haven’t overlooked any. As always, I welcome any comments!
]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/04/eight-mistakes-that-prevent-devops-success/feed/0Serena Named Network Products Guide Award Finalist for the 3rd Consecutive Yearhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/04/serena-named-network-products-guide-award-finalist-for-the-3rd-consecutive-year/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=serena-named-network-products-guide-award-finalist-for-the-3rd-consecutive-year
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/04/serena-named-network-products-guide-award-finalist-for-the-3rd-consecutive-year/#commentsTue, 16 Apr 2013 16:08:44 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2426I am very pleased to announce that another Serena solution has been recognized by the industry. This time our Serena Release Automation solution is in the spotlight for being named a finalist in Network Products Guide’s annual Hot Products Awards for the Application Delivery category. This is the third consecutive year that a Serena solution has been part of the awards finalists’ circle.

Stay tuned, winners will be announced on May 7, 2013 during an awards dinner and ceremony in Las Vegas.

On another note, I’m also happy to share Serena is ranked #12 in the annual San Francisco Business Times’ Peninsula Software Companies list that came out last week.

Spring is here and we are definitely springing forward.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/04/serena-named-network-products-guide-award-finalist-for-the-3rd-consecutive-year/feed/1Meet Us at the DevOps Drive-in, Popcorn Includedhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/04/meet-us-at-the-devops-drive-in-popcorn-included/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=meet-us-at-the-devops-drive-in-popcorn-included
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/04/meet-us-at-the-devops-drive-in-popcorn-included/#commentsMon, 08 Apr 2013 15:00:00 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2403Get your ticket to the next feature presentation of Serena’s DevOps Drive-In webcast series, “How to Achieve DevOps Nirvana” on April 25. Along with release management expert Eric Kunkel from MMA Technologies, we’ll share our experiences designing and implementing release management processes and solutions for several different organizations. Many of the companies that Eric has worked with have already enjoyed benefits like:

See also past and upcoming presentations in the DevOps Drive-In webcast series. A couple have sold out and the ones coming soon look to be blockbusters!

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/04/meet-us-at-the-devops-drive-in-popcorn-included/feed/0xChange13: Speak Up and Win Free Stuffhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/04/xchange13-speak-up-and-win-free-stuff/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=xchange13-speak-up-and-win-free-stuff
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/04/xchange13-speak-up-and-win-free-stuff/#commentsMon, 01 Apr 2013 16:09:33 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2393You know you know a lot about Serena’s solutions. What you know: everyone should know. How would you like to share your insights and experience at the Serena annual customer conference, xChange13? Propose your ideas and we’ll send you a Speaker Speaker just for sending them. If we pick your topic, you’ll also receive a free pass to xChange13 worth $1,895. Submit your topics now! We welcome all entries from Serena customers and partners. They must be submitted by April 15, 2013. Only one Speaker Speaker per person.
]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/04/xchange13-speak-up-and-win-free-stuff/feed/0What DevOps and Ninjas Have in Commonhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/03/what-devops-and-ninjas-have-in-common/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=what-devops-and-ninjas-have-in-common
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/03/what-devops-and-ninjas-have-in-common/#commentsFri, 29 Mar 2013 15:43:25 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2387DevOps is about flawless execution, which is what comes to mind when I think of Ninjas. DevOps Angle just published my article, “Secrets of a DevOps Ninja: Four Techniques to Overcome Deployment Roadblocks.” It outlines ways to overcome deployment roadblocks. The key takeaway is that it is extremely important to understand the processes used for deployments.

Assuming your basic processes are sound, should they be implemented as is or adapted to be even more effective when used as part of an automated process? This brings me to a fifth technique for a DevOps Ninja that I didn’t mention in the article: continually improve your processes. Being able to measure the effectiveness of your process is key. Decide on the KPIs, measure them and then continually seek to improve what you are doing and how you are doing it.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/03/what-devops-and-ninjas-have-in-common/feed/0Speeding Up DevOps Adoptionhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/03/speeding-up-devops-adoption/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=speeding-up-devops-adoption
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/03/speeding-up-devops-adoption/#commentsThu, 21 Mar 2013 16:54:57 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2372I recently attended DevOps Days in London. It was an amazing event with lots of great discussions and presentations. Some of the solutions and ideas presented were extremely creative. I spent time mingling with people who, undoubtedly, really know what they are doing.

On Saturday morning I had the pleasure of meeting Gene Kim, renowned DevOps researcher and author, and John Clapham, development lead for Nokia. Over breakfast we discussed the current state of DevOps and what could be done to help speed up DevOps adoption. My opinion is that while we have practitioner buy in, practitioners aren’t the best people to present strategic initiatives to business leaders.

The Phoenix Project, which just happens to be written by Gene, does a really good job of telling the story of how IT affects business outcomes and why DevOps is important. The story is told through the eyes of management and covers interactions between IT and many groups in the organization. No matter whether you are a hardcore techie, senior management or somewhere in between you will probably experience many “Aha!” moments and just as many moments that will bring back painful memories.

So, what are the next steps? To bring DevOps to a wider audience, there needs to be a suite of tools that are easy to use and integrate. The skill set required to chain together various tools is immense, and frankly sometimes the ingenuity shown is not something that will or should scale to the larger market.

At Serena we are making technology to support DevOps within companies more accessible, without needing an army of consultants or gurus just to achieve the basics and keep systems up and running.

Stay tuned for future articles on how to integrate commonly used tools into processes managed by Serena solutions.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/03/speeding-up-devops-adoption/feed/0The Evolution of RevAppshttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/03/the-evolution-of-revapps/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-evolution-of-revapps
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/03/the-evolution-of-revapps/#commentsWed, 20 Mar 2013 19:07:29 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2360My recent post at WIRED Insights on the Evolution of RevApps is generating plenty of positive feedback. People are commenting that the focus on Revenue Applications brings fresh insight to a variety of related topics, most especially DevOps. Or as the posting says, enterprises must properly organize themselves, adopt the necessary tooling and set the right goals to succeed in this brave new world.

What brave new world is that? The one that has crept up on us, where industry after industry now markets themselves to consumers via the wonders of their RevApps. File an insurance claim? Check in for a flight? Deposit a check? Shop for groceries? All via RevApps. These B2C examples can be equally matched in most B2B industries.

The reality of living and dying based on the success of RevApps is driving a bifurcation in IT organizations, new process models within RevApp IT and the adoption of new tool chains. That last is where Serena generates our revenue, but we’re also a participant in the community that is defining the new organizational and process models. To that end, I’m pleased that the Evolution of RevApps is making a contribution.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/03/the-evolution-of-revapps/feed/0#DevOpsLove Winnershttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/03/devopslove-winners/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=devopslove-winners
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/03/devopslove-winners/#commentsMon, 11 Mar 2013 16:48:04 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2323Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a winner. The top #DevOpsLove letter is

You had me at Release Management.

Congrats to its creator, @jdnorthwest, who wins a $150 US AmEx gift card, a bottle of California Champagne and a box of Ghirardelli chocolates to go with the bubbly.

Dev, Love means never having to say you’re sorry…to the Help Desk after 10,000 unnecessary calls, Ops

Congrats to the prolific poet of IT, @Kaizeneer, who wins a $50 AmEx gift card.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/03/devopslove-winners/feed/1Attend xChange13 for Freehttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/03/attend-xchange13-for-free/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=attend-xchange13-for-free
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/03/attend-xchange13-for-free/#commentsMon, 11 Mar 2013 16:25:26 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2315The xChange13 Call for Papers is open through March 31. Serena’s 17th annual global user conference, xChange13, will be in Miami Beach from September 16-18. We are building the detailed agenda right now and are looking for user stories to share with our customers. Would you be willing to speak at xChange? If so, please submit your presentation topic and description through the link below. If selected to speak, you will receive a complimentary ticket to the conference, an $1,895 value.

Your story could encompass a single product, a robust solution or an IT function; anything from Serena Business Manager to ChangeMan ZMF, Service Management to Release Management, or Application Development to Operations. Topics I’m particularly interested in for this year’s conference include:

If you are not planning to speak at xChange13 in Miami Beach but would like to attend, register at www.serena.com/xchange and take advantage of early bird savings!

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/03/attend-xchange13-for-free/feed/0Customers Always Say it Best: #5 Mark Stewart, Interthinxhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/03/customers-always-say-it-best-5-mark-stewart-interthinx/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=customers-always-say-it-best-5-mark-stewart-interthinx
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/03/customers-always-say-it-best-5-mark-stewart-interthinx/#commentsWed, 06 Mar 2013 18:23:00 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2301This is the last in the “Customers Always Say it Best” series of postings. I hope you’ve enjoyed it as much as I have enjoyed listening again to our customers. Thank you for all the feedback. We will certainly be doing more of this as the year moves forward. For those of you asking where you can register to be part of xChange13, go to www.serena.com/xchange.

But, back to Mark Stewart and the incredible things they are doing at Interthinx. Risk mitigation is a multi-billion dollar business today. Organizations cannot afford to have holes in their business processes and so forensic audits are now part of everyday life for all public (and most private) companies in the world.

Mark has a great anecdote about just how efficient it is possible to become when one can optimize and automate processes. Listen for the “No available work” error message story. Click on the play button in the image above or watch the video on Serena’s YouTube Channel.

While the Agile revolution isn’t done yet, the methodology is rather widely adopted now in development organizations. This is especially true when what are being developed are Revenue Applications, apps that are directly used by customers in the course of business.

The game changer for winning the RevApp race has thus moved downstream to Change & Release Management. Efficiently capturing Change Requests, triaging those CRs, routing and fulfilling them are part of the solution. So is automating deployments of both application and operational changes. Fail at this and it doesn’t matter how agile your dev is.

The good news is that new tools and orchestration systems are available to enable you to wildly succeed at CR Management. And now Serena is making available a webinar to explain the thought process you’ll want to understand to underpin that wild success.

Be sure to tune in on March 19th. We’ll also provide you with a 10-minute tour of how Serena’s software can help you streamline your change and release management processes.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/03/change-release-management-is-the-new-game-changer/feed/0#DevOpsLove Midwayhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/02/devopslove-midway/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=devopslove-midway
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/02/devopslove-midway/#commentsFri, 01 Mar 2013 01:16:47 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2266Well, more than midway. But isn’t that how it goes in a love affair, we forget the passage of time, besotted with thoughts of the other. Or something like that.

Love how that last brings in some Al Green. Love and soul, baby. And DevOps. Lots of DevOps.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/02/devopslove-midway/feed/1Continuous Delivery, Appification and Faster Releaseshttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/02/continuous-delivery-appification-and-faster-releases/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=continuous-delivery-appification-and-faster-releases
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/02/continuous-delivery-appification-and-faster-releases/#commentsThu, 28 Feb 2013 19:43:29 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2245There is a term that has been floating around the internet in the past year or so which illustrates a profound change in how we need to think about applications and how they are released.

That word is “Appification”.

Think about how you use apps on your smartphone. App updates don’t come on regular release schedules; they come when they are needed. The driver could be a fix for something that is broken or it could be in response to having fewer downloads of an app and pushing out new functionality that has been kept back, just waiting to go until App sales needed a boost.

This process is wonderfully convenient for both the vendor and users. Updates come frequently and we accept the updates without hesitation, as the changes are usually incremental and therefore, considered safe and not worth further consideration.

How does Appification relate to enterprise applications? For better or worse, as a society we want instant gratification. We don’t want to wait. And the way apps are delivered has proven to us that software can be delivered easily in incremental amounts. Customers are no longer willing to accept hosted solutions that are delivered at a set schedule of weeks or months. Missing the release train is no longer an option. Customers want hosted applications to be updated in the same manner as Apps on their smartphones.

At Serena we think of Continuous Delivery as a superset of Continuous Integration (CI), Continuous Testing (CT) and Continuous Deployment. Changes that are automatically propagated to all environments, except for production environments, are referred to as Continuous Deployment. The diagram below illustrates an example of Continuous Deployment. Deployments are approved automatically if success criteria are met for DEV, TEST and INTEG. To deliver code to UAT, STAGING or PROD, manual approvals and scheduling is required.

In order to achieve what we refer to as Continuous Delivery, simply remove the manual approval or scheduling and have successful changes propagate all the way through to production automatically, assuming all release criteria are met for each stage.

This is why the terms Continuous Delivery and Continuous Deployment are used interchangeably. The only real difference between the two is where you decide to put on the brakes for automated delivery to an environment.

Embracing the impact of Appification and applying it to your enterprise applications will give you a competitive advantage over your competition, enabling you to release value to your customers faster.

Join us for the next DevOps Drive-In webcast on March 19 at 8:00 a.m. PST. Glenn O’Donnell of Forrester Research will talk about 5 Simple Change and Release Management improvements that you can make. Why wait years for improvements when you can have them now? Register for the webcast!

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/02/continuous-delivery-appification-and-faster-releases/feed/0Serena Federal User Group to Feature Orchestrated IT Updateshttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/02/serena-federal-user-group-to-feature-orchestrated-it-updates/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=serena-federal-user-group-to-feature-orchestrated-it-updates
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/02/serena-federal-user-group-to-feature-orchestrated-it-updates/#commentsMon, 25 Feb 2013 20:48:13 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2229Serena looks forward to hosting a vibrant, interesting and breakout-session-rich Federal User Group at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. on April 3rd, 2013. This year’s agenda is directly driven by the feedback from Federal agencies, customers and partners. So please mark your diaries and sign up here.

This year’s tracks include:

Orchestrated Application Development

Service Transition through Orchestrated Change and Release Management

Orchestrated IT / Serena Business Manager

Among the advances and improvements, you will hear about how to bring agility into application development and delivery processes, including agile planning and continuous delivery. Within Service Transition, you will learn how to optimize and drive efficiency of change and release management processes while securing tremendous business value. Finally, you will hear about key and critical updates to orchestrating IT from Demand, through Development, Release and Service management.

Greg Hughes, Serena CEO and President, will be on hand to discuss Serena’s strategic path ahead with your agency in 1:1 meetings. Another highlight is The AnswerZone, where Serena product experts and gurus answer any question you have, on any subject. Finally, all Federal User Group attendees are eligible to attend the free Federal Boot Camp sessions the following day, April 4th, also at the Newseum.

We very much look forward to meeting you, hearing from you, and understanding how we can best service your agency’s requirements and the needs of your customers. Register now!

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/02/serena-federal-user-group-to-feature-orchestrated-it-updates/feed/0Change & Release Dino-Mitehttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/02/change-release-dino-mite/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=change-release-dino-mite
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/02/change-release-dino-mite/#commentsFri, 22 Feb 2013 02:09:28 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2220We premiered our latest video in front of 1,500 people this week at the Pink13 conference. You never know how these things will be received until they air, especially when they’re supposed to be funny. I like to think I know funny, but I’m darn sure I know laughter, and I’m pleased to report that the Change & Release Dino video triggered uproarious laughter from the assembled throng.

The laughter was so strong at the end that it obscured the video’s tagline, which is that Serena is your solution when you need to go from request-to-release in less than an eon. And that’s no joke.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/02/change-release-dino-mite/feed/0Customers Always Say it Best: #4 Max Perez, MIQ Logisticshttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/02/customers-always-say-it-best-4-max-perez-miq-logistics/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=customers-always-say-it-best-4-max-perez-miq-logistics
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/02/customers-always-say-it-best-4-max-perez-miq-logistics/#commentsWed, 20 Feb 2013 18:58:45 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2200Logistics is the lifeblood of modern life. Most of us did our holiday shopping online and it was the worldwide logistics infrastructure that got those gifts where they needed to go. For MIQ, operating on four continents, customer service is a real differentiator for them. And MIQ’s ability to use technology effectively is a differentiator for MIQ’s customers, as they say, “Supply chain solutions for the speed of innovation.”

For our fourth posting in the “Customers Always Say it Best” series I thought we would hear about what it takes to revitalize the infrastructure of an organization. Most of us have an accretion of technologies that we have inherited and customized to the hilt. But, just like our much loved and faithful car from our college days, eventually we realize that it is time to get up to date with something safer, faster, easier to use and cheaper to maintain.

Take careful note of what Max Perez of MIQ Logistics has to say about the confusion and frustration users can experience when service management is not supported with great technology and the impact it has on any business. Click on the play button in the image above or watch the video on Serena’s YouTube Channel.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/02/customers-always-say-it-best-4-max-perez-miq-logistics/feed/0Serena xChange13: Time to Register and Plan for Miami!http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/02/serena-xchange13-time-to-register-and-plan-for-miami/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=serena-xchange13-time-to-register-and-plan-for-miami
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/02/serena-xchange13-time-to-register-and-plan-for-miami/#commentsMon, 18 Feb 2013 19:59:02 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2183I’ve said this year after year, but it’s true. Every xChange, Serena’s Global User Conference, outdoes the previous year in terms of the exchange of ideas, customer presentations, and total participation. I promise you that xChange13 will be no different. It’s going to rock – at the Eden Roc Renaissance Miami Beach!

We are pleased to announce that Early Bird registration is now open for Serena xChange13 (pricing below). The conference dates are September 16-18, 2013 with post-conference training from September 19-20. Plan on joining us on September 15th to enjoy “A Taste of Miami” welcome reception. Then you will have two full days to soak in 80+ breakout sessions, the AnswerZone, and Serena product gurus.

But don’t wait for the conference to start collaborating. Once you register, you’ll have access to the xChange Collaboration Portal where you can connect now with other users and product experts. Here’s how you can save by registering for xChange13 before July 1:

I guarantee you will take home new knowledge that you will be able to implement almost immediately when you arrive back to work. With that, how can you not attend? Register now!

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/02/serena-xchange13-time-to-register-and-plan-for-miami/feed/0Enter Serena’s #DevOpsLove Contest, Grand Prize $150http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/02/enter-your-devops-love-letter-in-serenas-latest-twitter-contest-for-a-chance-to-win-150-us-amex-gift-card-bottle-of-california-champagne-and-a-box-of-ghirardelli-chocolates/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=enter-your-devops-love-letter-in-serenas-latest-twitter-contest-for-a-chance-to-win-150-us-amex-gift-card-bottle-of-california-champagne-and-a-box-of-ghirardelli-chocolates
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/02/enter-your-devops-love-letter-in-serenas-latest-twitter-contest-for-a-chance-to-win-150-us-amex-gift-card-bottle-of-california-champagne-and-a-box-of-ghirardelli-chocolates/#commentsThu, 14 Feb 2013 14:05:39 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2168We at Serena Software are especially fond of how modern IT organizations have evolved to support externally-facing, revenue generating applications. Our latest Twitter contest idea was spawned by our own team but also inspired by the most romantic holiday of the year, Valentines Day.

There are three players in the triangle that is today’s product-focused IT orgs: Dev, Ops and DevOps. These teams all work closely together and play integral roles, but such as with any relationship comes those triumphs and infatuation also some times frustrations and lows. For example, sometimes Dev is especially appreciative of Ops’ ability to solve service problems, and on the flip side, sometimes Ops isn’t so happy with Dev’s inability to deliver on deployment. So today we are launching a Twitter love letter contest to showcase those high and low feelings between, Dev, Ops and DevOps to one another.

Now it’s your turn. The three-week-long DevOps Love Letter contest is a chance to use Twitter and your imagination to get creative, have fun and win great prizes, such as a $150 US AmEx gift card, bottle of California Champagne and a box of Ghirardelli chocolates. Three winners will be chosen with second place receiving a $100 AmEx gift card and third, a $50 AmEx gift card.

The contest kicks off Thursday, February 14, 2013 at 12:01am ET and ends Friday, March 8th, 2013 at 11:59 p.m. ET.

To be a part of this contest, write and submit a Tweetable love letter in the well known 140 characters or less. Make it from the perspective of Dev, Ops or DevOps, tell why one of the others means so much to you. All entries must be submitted via Twitter to @SerenaSoftware, and include the hash tag #DevOpsLove.

Sometimes love turns sour however. So feel free to write spurned love letters as well. Keep in mind that humor is one of the judging criteria.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/02/enter-your-devops-love-letter-in-serenas-latest-twitter-contest-for-a-chance-to-win-150-us-amex-gift-card-bottle-of-california-champagne-and-a-box-of-ghirardelli-chocolates/feed/0Speed Through Release Roadblocks with Continuous Deliveryhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/02/speed-through-release-roadblocks-with-continuous-delivery/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=speed-through-release-roadblocks-with-continuous-delivery
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/02/speed-through-release-roadblocks-with-continuous-delivery/#commentsWed, 06 Feb 2013 19:03:51 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2146Continuous Delivery is all the rage for dev teams and the release management / application delivery marketplace. And rightfully so, as it is the application delivery methodology that lets App Dev deliver the code. It saves time and money as it cuts the time for applications to be delivered into production.

A key driver for Continuous Delivery has been the adoption of Agile as a development methodology. Most of our long-term application lifecycle management (ALM) customers have implemented at least some agile development processes, and Continuous Delivery is next up for them.

At Agile 2012 last year, we surveyed the audience and found that 49% of the respondents’ companies have significantly adopted the use of Agile for development. And 55% of those respondents said that they are “already there” or “getting there” in the use of Continuous Delivery. Take a look at the infographic from the Agile 2012 conference and survey. Note also that we’ll be at Agile 2013 in August and we’ll rerun the survey and provide our annual Agile Conference Survey report for you! We’ll see what the adoption rate for Continuous Delivery is after another year.

While Continuous Delivery does provide great value, it is not appropriate for all application deployments. Many applications require a separation of duties: App Dev develops and IT Ops deploys. Hence, deployments into production follow the traditional stage gate methodology and are handled by IT Operations. This hybrid of Continuous Delivery and Stage Gate Delivery is Continuous Deployment; it can be implemented with Release Automation plus release process control and management of the hand-offs between App Dev and IT Ops.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/02/speed-through-release-roadblocks-with-continuous-delivery/feed/2Customers Always Say it Best: #3 Eric Kunkel, MMA Technologieshttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/02/customers-always-say-it-best-3-eric-kunkel-mma-technologies/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=customers-always-say-it-best-3-eric-kunkel-mma-technologies
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/02/customers-always-say-it-best-3-eric-kunkel-mma-technologies/#commentsMon, 04 Feb 2013 18:53:56 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2130Thank you for the feedback on this blog series that examines how Serena gains insight from our customers into where our solutions need to develop. I have tried to respond to every one of the emails but apologies if I missed one. This time I thought we’d take a little sidestep and hear from one of our partners.

MMA Technologies is based in New Jersey. The team comprises of seasoned experts in the field of Release Management with decades of experience delivering business-critical applications into production for some of the largest financial institutions in the world. Eric Kunkel of MMA Technologies builds some of the most advanced and sophisticated processes and automations that deliver results through shortening delivery times, improving quality and making visibility and control consistent.

But it is better if you hear this directly from Eric. He has some powerful metrics to share. Click on the play button in the image above or watch the video on Serena’s YouTube Channel. Then learn how Serena and MMA work together to build world class release management teams in DEV and OPS.

If you have ideas or comments about this series of blog posts please contact me at kparker@serena.com or write a comment below.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/02/customers-always-say-it-best-3-eric-kunkel-mma-technologies/feed/0Pink Elephant finalist, againhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/01/pink-elephant-finalist-again/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=pink-elephant-finalist-again
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/01/pink-elephant-finalist-again/#commentsThu, 24 Jan 2013 21:01:37 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2114This never gets old. Innovation and validation, that is. Serena’s innovation in the broad realm of ITIL processes was validated almost a year ago when we won Pink Elephant’s prestigious ITIL Innovation of the Year Award. The new news is that we’ve just been selected as a finalist for this year’s award, further validating our ongoing innovation.

Our innovation this time is to directly address and automate the challenges of Service Transition, the ITIL volume focused on change, release and deployment management. Service Transition has received too little attention from those of us in the vendor community, which is a problem since it is central to speeding up Request-to-Release cycles and in addressing the DevOps divide. IOW, it is an essential competency for any business that competes online.

Anyway, speaking for the innovative Serena software engineers who built the solution that automates the Service Transition process, let me say that it’s an honor to be a finalist for the second year in a row. We look forward to sharing with the attendees at Pink13 how the solution that impressed the Pink Elephant judges works and why it will win them awards of their own.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/01/pink-elephant-finalist-again/feed/0Customers Always Say it Best: #2 Matt Stratton, Apartments.comhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/01/customers-always-say-it-best-2-matt-stratton-apartments-com/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=customers-always-say-it-best-2-matt-stratton-apartments-com
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/01/customers-always-say-it-best-2-matt-stratton-apartments-com/#commentsMon, 21 Jan 2013 17:30:06 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2106Welcome back to the blog series that examines how Serena gains insight from our customers into where our solutions need to develop.

In our second episode we hear from Matt Stratton at Apartments.com. Any online business needs to have maximum velocity in IT in order to maintain its competitive edge. To rapidly innovate and turn software versions, Apartments.com has to release software very fast, with repeatable accuracy and efficiency. The pressure was on at Apartments.com because of the development team’s move to Agile methods and the need to ensure business continuity. Two opposing requirements but both necessary for the business.

If you have ideas or comments about this series of blog posts please contact me at kparker@serena.com or write a comment below.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/01/customers-always-say-it-best-2-matt-stratton-apartments-com/feed/0The Social IT Game Reveals All: “It’s Like Myers-Briggs for IT Leadership”http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/01/the-social-it-game-reveals-all-its-like-myers-briggs-for-it-leadership/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-social-it-game-reveals-all-its-like-myers-briggs-for-it-leadership
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/01/the-social-it-game-reveals-all-its-like-myers-briggs-for-it-leadership/#commentsWed, 16 Jan 2013 18:43:22 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2103Think You Know Your Team?

When was the last time you sat down with your peers and had a discussion about their priorities? What drives your priorities and what drives those of your peers may be widely dissimilar. Time-to-market may be your watch word. Maybe up-time and availability are key for your colleague downstream and driving out costs for an associate upstream.

What if you could have a Leadership Priorities Matrix for everyone in your team? How would you approach your peers if you really knew what they wanted?

The Social-IT Game

At the beginning of 2012 Serena decided it was time to find out. So a team of very smart marketing engineers got together and created the Social IT Game.

In the Social IT Game you get to play yourself. You are faced with a number of IT challenges and asked to prioritize your responses to them. Challenges vary from game to game but include the whole gamut of topics from Demand Management to Release Management to Service Management and everything in between.

But the real fun begins when you then have to put yourself in the shoes of your peers and guess how they would prioritize their responses to the challenges.

Suddenly, development managers are faced with trying to understand how release managers would prioritize needs of the service desk community. It’s fascinating what people get right and what teams have in common. But what truly brings new clarity and real debate is in the differences and in the surprises.

Surprising Results

In one recent game the entire IT management team had strong and uniform consensus that Reduce Cycle Time to the Business was everyone’s number one priority (see graph to right). Detailed and Accurate Chargebacks was rated last for all team members. But there was clear division between the DEV and the OPS communities over the relative importance of More Business Value versus More Visibility in the release management process. And from this an informative debate ensued.

To help put the graph and scores to the right in perspective, different point totals were given to a priority based on the ranking of each participant.

In 2012 Serena conducted almost 40 of these Social IT Game events for specially invited customers and at the invitation of customers inside their own organizations. Each company received an assessment report afterwards, kind of like an IT Org Profile. Take a look at a sample report for Qlarius, a fictitious company with Doug Serena at the helm of IT.

Get Your Own Leadership Priority Matrix

Want Serena to bring the Social IT Game, along with lunch, to your IT organization? Want a Myers-Briggs IT score for your team? Contact me.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/01/the-social-it-game-reveals-all-its-like-myers-briggs-for-it-leadership/feed/0Customers Always Say it Best: #1 Ken Vane, Navy Federal Credit Unionhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/01/customers-always-say-it-best-1-ken-vane-navy-federal-credit-union/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=customers-always-say-it-best-1-ken-vane-navy-federal-credit-union
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/01/customers-always-say-it-best-1-ken-vane-navy-federal-credit-union/#commentsMon, 07 Jan 2013 17:34:43 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2100We call our customer conference xChange because it is an opportunity to exchange ideas and insights. It is a once-a-year coming-together of the customer’s best and brightest with Serena’s leadership and development teams. We take time to learn from the customers as much as we have new information to impart.

In this 5-episode blog series I am going to introduce you to some of the key contributors that have helped shape and frame Serena’s direction. Through their experience and knowledge we have created leading solutions to businesses technology issues.

Our first contribution comes from Ken Vane at Navy Federal Credit Union. Like most organizations, Navy Fed is trying to maximize the effectiveness of the development community from requirements to deployment. Let’s hear from Ken about what it takes to get better insight, control and traceability for its entire development process. Click on the play button on the image above or watch the video on Serena’s YouTube Channel.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/01/customers-always-say-it-best-1-ken-vane-navy-federal-credit-union/feed/0Double-Down on the Dev-Ops Union, New Survey Findshttp://www.serena.com/blog/2013/01/double-down-on-the-dev-ops-union-new-survey-finds/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=double-down-on-the-dev-ops-union-new-survey-finds
http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/01/double-down-on-the-dev-ops-union-new-survey-finds/#commentsThu, 03 Jan 2013 00:56:38 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2096IT organizations are being called upon to provide the most mission critical of services – delivering and maintaining revenue-generating applications that are the face of the business. But a recent survey of 200 IT professionals from a variety of industries revealed an appalling lack of service management process and tool maturity within organizations. This severely impacts their ability to respond to the increasing pace of service demand from the business.

The survey’s key findings were as follows:

The business (92%) does not perceive IT as a true partner.

Development and Operations blame each other. Three quarters cited operations as a roadblock to agile development, and 72 percent cite development as not supporting the goals of operations. The research shows a clear divide between Development and Operations, helping to explain the aspirational popularity of DevOps this past year.

Disconnected processes limit Development and Operations’ success. 72 percent revealed that operational change and release management, which are central to the Service Transition prescribed by ITILv3, were the most disconnected.

Rudimentary communication practices lead to limited visibility into planned changes. 60 percent cited they had “little to no” visibility into planned changes. Survey data showed antiquated communication practices such as email, spreadsheets and word of mouth are still relied upon for sharing critical and time-sensitive information about planned development of operational changes.

Poor reporting leads to inaccurate status updates to the business. Only six percent reported having shared release calendars across development and operations. Shared calendars add transparency to development changes, helping to ensure they are not missed.

The survey results indicate that it is time for organizations to take a more holistic approach to ITSM as prescribed by the five core publications in ITIL v3 – Service Strategy, Service Design, Service Transition, Service Operation, and Continual Service Improvement. In this new on-line world, it’s all about Service Transition, rapidly delivering services required by the business into operational use, and that’s exactly what’s reflected in the survey results.

Many organizations have recognized this challenge and are doubling down on streamlining service and release management, the Agile-ITIL interface. Perhaps Matt Stratton, Director of Technical Infrastructure at Apartments.com, says it best.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2013/01/double-down-on-the-dev-ops-union-new-survey-finds/feed/0Doug Serena, CIO Continues to Earn Recognitionhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2012/12/doug-serena-cio-continues-to-earn-recognition/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=doug-serena-cio-continues-to-earn-recognition
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/12/doug-serena-cio-continues-to-earn-recognition/#commentsFri, 14 Dec 2012 16:16:18 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2085Back in March we launched Doug Serena, CIO, a popular docudrama that served as a case study of an intrepid IT leadership team’s quest to transform their company from endangered to dominating. Doug Serena, CIO was created to educate people about the benefits of Orchestrated IT in what turned out to be a fun, fresh and catchy new manner of product marketing. Not only was the YouTube docudrama a success, Doug Serena himself made a celebrity appearance at this year’s Serena xChange Global User Conference.

The Doug Serena, CIO project is now also award winning, having been named a Gold Medal winner in the ‘Film or Video of the Year’ category for the Best in Biz Awards 2012. Winners of the Best in Biz Awards 2012 were determined by an independent panel of 32 judges from top-tier news, business and technology publications, broadcast outlets and analyst firms, such as ABC, BusinessWeek, Computerworld, Entrepreneur, eWeek, Examiner, Forbes, FOX News, and IDG. Prior to the Best in Biz, the Doug Serena, CIO series was named a finalist in the Business-To-Business (B2B) Talking Category for the Forrester Groundswell Award 2012.

We are excited that Doug Serena, CIO has continued to drive awareness of the benefits of Orchestrated IT, and are appreciative that it is being recognized even outside of IT.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/12/doug-serena-cio-continues-to-earn-recognition/feed/0Thrilled to be Taking on a New Challengehttp://www.serena.com/blog/2012/12/thrilled-to-be-taking-on-a-new-challenge/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=thrilled-to-be-taking-on-a-new-challenge
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/12/thrilled-to-be-taking-on-a-new-challenge/#commentsWed, 12 Dec 2012 18:51:05 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2074After seven great years here at Serena, I am thrilled to announce my new role as Senior Vice President of Products, where I will lead all product development and strategy across Serena’s award-winning portfolio of technologies. Our core purpose here at Serena is to advance the business value of IT by orchestrating application development, delivery, and support. In my humble opinion, Serena has never been so relevant to the industry and solves today’s tremendous market needs.

Needless to say, I’m excited about this new opportunity and look forward to continuing to bring the industry the most innovative ALM, enterprise DevOps, and IT service management solutions available today.

Most recently I served as GVP & GM of SBM Products & IT Service Management where I worked to develop and launch the Serena Service Management Solution, which received the coveted Pink Elephant Innovator of the Year Award last year. Prior to that, I was VP of SBM products here at Serena where I defined the strategy for process-based visual application assembly and developed the SBM Platform to fulfill the orchestrated IT solution strategy for Serena.

In the year ahead, I plan to help Serena continue our great journey of strengthening Serena’s leadership position and will focus on automating and streamlining the supply chain process of application development, delivery and support. We plan to further leverage Serena’s underlying PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service) to empower Managed Service Providers and Online Enterprises looking to deliver differentiated process-based application content to their cloud (Process-as-a-Service). Stay tuned!

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/12/thrilled-to-be-taking-on-a-new-challenge/feed/0Adopting ITSM: Your Tool is Ready, Are You?http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/12/adopting-itsm-your-tool-is-ready-are-you/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=adopting-itsm-your-tool-is-ready-are-you
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/12/adopting-itsm-your-tool-is-ready-are-you/#commentsThu, 06 Dec 2012 18:08:44 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2056Requirements document complete? Check. Design Complete? Check. Configuration work complete? Check. Testing complete? Check. Go-live date still on target? Check. Are we ready? Um, we think so. When it comes to ITSM implementations we don’t want to think we are ready, we want to know we are ready. Yet, this is rarely the case when implementing an ITSM solution.

I recently gave a presentation on ITSM implementation best practices and was reminded of the nonchalant approach most organizations take towards their implementations when it comes to non-technical facets. In essence, there’s still a large percentage of companies who focus on the go-live date and tool readiness and often overlook the need for a strategic adoption plan. This results in a dysfunctional organizational adoption of the tool set (read: “we won’t use it”), limited tool-specific knowledge and another waste of capital in the eyes of senior management.

In order for an ITSM initiative to not only meet its deadlines and provide value back to the company, it’s imperative that the enterprise include an Adoption Campaign during the delivery. It’s about cultural adoption, education, and assimilation activities that will not only reduce fear and anxiety of the forthcoming change, but increase the user rate while improving processes, which will ultimately drive down organizational costs. Win-win if you ask me.

Go Beyond the Email

As I’m sure you’ve experienced, internal email is the most commonly used form of promoting tool adoption. If you’re nodding your head, then you know the drill. Email is sent, some read it, most don’t, and the go-live is a technical success but adoption is a non-event. People need to be sold on the notion that change is coming; it will make lives easier (if it doesn’t, why do it to begin with?), and is worthy of an embrace. Failure to sell and market internally will reward you with this type of karmic retribution. Not to mention, it’s extremely boring.

We need to get creative and excited here, folks! Create posters, have lunch and learns, and if all else fails, bribe people! Well, not in the illegal sense, but encourage the population to become involved in the changes that will occur and reward the participants. Starbucks gift cards go a long way in this regard.

So, the next time you’re looking to upgrade or change your ITSM solution, don’t just concentrate on the go-live dates in order to measure success. Focus on the people who will be adopting the solution, and do it early. Success will be right around the corner.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/12/adopting-itsm-your-tool-is-ready-are-you/feed/0Conquer the 7 Deadly Sins of Managing IT Demandhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2012/12/conquer-the-7-deadly-sins-of-managing-it-demand/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=conquer-the-7-deadly-sins-of-managing-it-demand
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/12/conquer-the-7-deadly-sins-of-managing-it-demand/#commentsMon, 03 Dec 2012 23:26:09 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2037In my last blog post, I wrote that the “7 Deadly Sins of IT Demand” are driving down business satisfaction with IT. Any of these sins can make it extremely challenging for IT to efficiently and quickly fulfill demand. Recognize any of them?

The Squeaky Wheel, who constantly harasses IT or escalates requests.

The Black Hole where good requests go to die.

The Annual Plan that stays the same, no matter what happens during the year.

First Come, First Serve that forces everyone to wait their turn, regardless of business priority.

Commitment Conundrum or Analysis Paralysis.

Death by Committee, where no one is willing to make a decision.

Unfinished Business, when initiatives just die because there’s no one to champion their cause.

So how can you conquer the 7 deadly sins of IT demand? Here are 7 tried and true cures I’ve heard from customers:

Don’t just set it and forget it. Build flexibility into your plan, and make sure you have defined time periods, criteria and stage-gates where you review your plans. Be realistic about potential slips and delays, and build that in your plans. And if possible, reserve some capacity for unplanned activities.

Set the right path: Make smart decision-making points so that demand can quickly get routed and fulfilled by the right people. Change requests, new project ideas or operational requests should be funneled through a common system that triages each request quickly, and then routes it to the appropriate party. In this model, IT becomes more efficient and responsive to the customer.

Establish a czar: You need to have one person be the head “controller” for IT demand within a given service or application domain. This needs to be a senior representative from the business organization with the right amount of political clout. Otherwise, your organization will quickly devolve into Committee Conundrum or Death by Committee.

Let everyone vote: Use a single place for everyone to submit all requests. Make it open, available and transparent to everyone, so business users know where their requests are, so that good ideas can be expanded upon to make them great ideas.

Get real with your people: Initiate time tracking so you can more accurately assess planned versus actual capacity. Integrate time tracking into the systems where people actually perform their work, like the IT Service Management system and the Configuration Management System. That way time tracking is done in real time and is not a weekly afterthought.

Make the process transparent: Document the process and be sure to include formal stage gates. Ensure the process is visible and understood by all stakeholders, not just IT.

Be consistent: define a standard set of criteria to assess and prioritize demand. Use a single system for tracking initiatives, and ensure KPI’s are in place to accurately measure project status.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/12/conquer-the-7-deadly-sins-of-managing-it-demand/feed/0Serena Orchestrated IT 4.0 Designed for Mobile, Social and Cloudhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2012/11/serena-orchestrated-it-4-0-designed-for-mobile-social-and-cloud/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=serena-orchestrated-it-4-0-designed-for-mobile-social-and-cloud
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/11/serena-orchestrated-it-4-0-designed-for-mobile-social-and-cloud/#commentsThu, 29 Nov 2012 16:57:56 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2021We’re proud to announce that the significant advancements made to our Orchestrated IT solution set are now generally available. Serena Orchestrated IT 4.0 was specially designed to help agile enterprises take full advantage of mobile, social and cloud capabilities.

For the Front Office, Development, and Operations, Serena Orchestrated IT 4.0 consists of Serena’s major solutions, including Serena Dashboard, Request Center, Demand Manager, Requirements Manager, Development Manager, Release Manager, and Service Manager.

New and enhanced Serena solutions to enable Orchestrated IT for the agile enterprise include:

Dashboard 4.0: The new Serena Mobile Dashboard lets IT executives use the Apple iPad to access and interact with the KPIs and dashboards. The latest version of Serena Dashboard also includes many more metrics for Serena ChangeMan ZMF, providing customers a unified view of both distributed and mainframe platforms.

Demand Manager 4.0: The latest release of Serena Demand Manager provides a number of features that make it easier to track resources and costs. Managers can create teams based on skills, allocate them to project deliverables and be alerted when resources are already fully allocated. Team managers also have complete visibility into both planned and actual allocations in a given month.

Requirements Manager 4.0: The latest release of Requirements Manager provides a number of customer enhancements, and includes even tighter integrations with Serena Development Manager and Serena Release Manager.

Development Manager 4.0: Providing many customer enhancements, Development Manager advances the user experience for development team stakeholders, supports process control that unifies the coordination of development change requests across both ChangeMan ZMF and Dimensions CM, and streamlines the hand-off of development packages to Serena Release Manager.

Release Manager 4.0: Rich development-driven release management capabilities have been added to Serena Release Manager to complement its strong operations-driven release management capabilities. Significant enhancements include support of continuous delivery, intelligent deployments to reduce deployment time, and enhanced cloud deployment capabilities, including the ability to schedule and deploy applications to Amazon EC2. Other enhancements to Serena Release Manager include the scheduling of deployments across multiple applications, the availability of Media Vault / Definitive Media Library (DML) functionality, and enhancements to the release calendar to support user customizable data feeds.

Service Manager 4.0: The Configuration Management System (CMS) has been enhanced in this release to make it easier for customers to configure authorized and allowable relationships between configuration item (CI) types, associate custom icons with CI categories, create relationships between CIs graphically and zoom in to the details of a CI that is in focus. New dashboards that track work assignments across service request, incident, problem and change management to better manage resources have also been added in this release.

You can read the detailed release notes for all the Serena solutions on the Serena Support website (customer login required).

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/11/serena-orchestrated-it-4-0-designed-for-mobile-social-and-cloud/feed/0At the Mainframe Crossroads: Viewpoints from Serena Customershttp://www.serena.com/blog/2012/11/at-the-mainframe-crossroads-viewpoints-from-serena-customers/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=at-the-mainframe-crossroads-viewpoints-from-serena-customers
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/11/at-the-mainframe-crossroads-viewpoints-from-serena-customers/#commentsFri, 09 Nov 2012 16:47:28 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=2003Serena had a great turnout for the Mainframe xChange12 breakout sessions and the “xChange Again” webcast on October 4. At xChange, our customers had many questions about the future of the mainframe. In many respects, we are at the greatest crossroads in the history of the mainframe. Three points were loud and clear from our customers.

1. Our customers are doing more with less.

With downsizing, mergers and acquisitions, and corporate restructuring, we have customers who now have only 2 or 3 ChangeMan ZMF administrators versus the 8 – 10 ZMF administrators in the past. Yet, the demand, commitments, and overall workload for the administrators continue to grow. Fortunately many ZMF enhancements over the past few years have helped administrators be more productive, whether it be by streamlining the compile process, allowing for variable library types, the ability to keep core skeletons cleaner, etc. We know that customers are looking for even more productivity enhancements along these lines and we aim to please.

2. The user community is expressing the need to facilitate off-platform development and test.

There is a shift to move development and unit test off of the higher priced general purpose MIPS to more cost-effective platforms. Although we know that mainframes continue to process the lion’s share of the world’s computing workloads and transactions, the tools and methodologies have changed dramatically in the last several years. With new developers coming out of universities who are accustomed to working in a variety of integrated development environments and using more lean development methodologies, how can Serena, and the industry as a whole, adapt to that?

At least not anymore. Support for heterogeneous platforms and hybrid apps are more relevant now than ever before. With a significant amount of new MIPS-on-the-floor dedicated to zLinux, our customers are looking to us for leadership in orchestrating a unified strategy.

Let’s first talk about what was demonstrated at xChange12. During the conference, we talked about Orchestrated IT and connecting all IT processes, including those for the mainframe and those for distributed systems. This is a tremendous change from what IT organizations have been accustomed to — a distinct chasm between the mainframe and distributed environments. Now, with zLinux running on System z, and mobile, cloud and embedded thrown into the mix, the lines that separate the platforms no longer exist, or are at least very fuzzy. As these environments begin to move in lock-step from demand through deployment, Serena is uniquely positioned to assist in navigating every step of the way with rigor, visibility, traceability and the ability to roll back. And with ChangeMan ZMF ERO web services now available, we are able to augment our Orchestrated IT story with the intelligence that ERO brings to the table.

ChangeMan ZMF Client Pack: With ChangeMan ZMF for Eclipse, developers have the option of working in Eclipse and no longer need to log onto a 3270 to interact with ZMF. This is the biggest leap yet in what we are delivering for ChangeMan ZMF for Eclipse.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/11/at-the-mainframe-crossroads-viewpoints-from-serena-customers/feed/17 Deadly Sins of Managing IT Demandhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2012/10/7-deadly-sins-of-it-demand/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=7-deadly-sins-of-it-demand
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/10/7-deadly-sins-of-it-demand/#commentsTue, 30 Oct 2012 18:50:10 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=1991The “7 Deadly Sins of Managing IT Demand” are undermining business satisfaction with IT. They’re the reason why IT struggles fulfilling business demands and answering some key questions from the business:

What’s the status of my requests?

Why can’t IT fulfill my demands faster?

What’s IT doing with my budget?

So what are the 7 Deadly Sins and how are they jeopardizing IT success?

The Squeaky Wheel: Whether it’s constantly harassing IT or escalating requests, the Squeaky Wheel makes sure his demands get fulfilled, no matter what the impact is to the rest of IT’s efforts. The Squeaky Wheel is a surefire way to delay everyone else’s initiatives and upset the IT apple cart.

The Black Hole: The most common complaint of business stakeholders? They have no idea what the status of their requests is. Ideas get submitted, but they end up in an IT Black Hole and then no one can tell what happened to them. Just as bad, these requests often get released without the business knowing about them!

The Annual Plan: Every IT organization has a great annual plan on the amazing initiatives they’ll accomplish in the upcoming year. The problem? Things change – priorities, competitive offerings, resources – but the plan never does. And usually there’s no process or plan on how to modify the plan in mid-stream.

First Come, First Serve: Following close behind the Squeaky Wheel is First Come, First Serve. Without clear direction and priority, IT simply serves whoever is first in line. When something more important comes along, the initiative has to wait its turn.

Commitment Conundrum: Or call it Analysis Paralysis. Often times, IT organizations are too afraid to actually commit resources to initiatives that they end up analyzing and analyzing business requirements until it’s too late to do anything.

Death by Committee: We’ve all been there. A close corollary to the Commitment Conundrum, this deadly sin makes progress slow to a halt because no one on the governing body is willing to make a decision.

Unfinished Business: Even success can lead to failure! Often after the initial phase of the project, the sponsor is promoted or moves on, and the IT initiative just dies because there’s no one to champion its cause.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/10/7-deadly-sins-of-it-demand/feed/3What Does IT Have to Do with Baseball?http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/10/what-does-it-have-to-do-with-baseball/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=what-does-it-have-to-do-with-baseball
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/10/what-does-it-have-to-do-with-baseball/#commentsFri, 26 Oct 2012 18:22:33 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=1977To paraphrase a line in the movie Field of Dreams, “What does IT have to do with baseball?”

Perhaps a lot more than you think.

Last weekend, I watched a more recent Academy Award-nominated baseball film, Moneyball, starring Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill. Based on Michael Lewis’s biographical book of the same name, Moneyball recounts how General Manager Billy Beane (Pitt) and the 2002 Oakland A’s competed against wealthier teams, like the New York Yankees, despite a payroll roughly a third the size of the Yankees’.

In one scene, Peter Brand (Hill) uses a video to make a point to his boss, Beane. At the end of the video, Beane says to Brand, “How can you not be romantic about baseball?”

Thinking Beane may have missed the point of the video, Brand says, “It’s a metaphor.” Beane understood.

I also saw a metaphor in the story as a whole, though probably not one that the writers or director intended. Beane’s challenges in Moneyball mirror the challenges we face today in the IT industry. Let’s take a look at some ways Beane overcame his challenges and how we might apply similar thinking to IT:

1. Identify needs. Beane realized he had to think differently and identify the real challenge he needed to solve: How to produce enough runs to win games and make the playoffs or win the World Series, despite severe budget constraints.

How it relates to IT – In order for IT to meet the needs of the business, we can’t make assumptions. We must capture the actual business demand for IT services or development projects using an application like Serena Demand Manager.

2. Define a quantifiable solution. Beane created an innovative way to address his challenge of producing runs. With the help of Brand, a fictionalized composite of an assistant General Manager with an Ivy League economics degree, Beane ignored traditional baseball statistics and focused on statistics that directly impacted run production and minimized outs.

How it relates to IT – We can’t afford to spend our time or our money on low priority items, and we need to add value as efficiently as possible. Therefore, we should design services that best align to the needs of the business. Well-defined services should be published in a service catalog and should include measurement goals. Serena Request Center enables customers to quickly publish IT’s services to the business.

3. Evaluate and improve. Together, Beane and Brand found ways of quantifying value and evaluating performance to assemble a team that would help them better predict success in the form of runs scored and wins. Throughout the season, they continued to tweak their roster to get the greatest value from the team.

How it relates to IT – We must continually evaluate performance and look for areas to increase value, reduce cost or gain efficiency. Monitoring service levels associated with the items in the service catalog often gives us the best snapshot of performance. Serena Request Center allows you to quickly and easily define the service levels and view both real-time and historical performance.

Tighter budgets. Need for greater innovation to increase value and drive success. Finding ways to quantify performance and determine how to continually improve. Maybe we don’t romanticize IT as much as baseball, but it’s only a metaphor.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/10/what-does-it-have-to-do-with-baseball/feed/0Serena Named a Leader by Vaunted Analyst Firm, Forrester Researchhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2012/10/serena-named-a-leader-by-vaunted-analyst-firm-forrester-research/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=serena-named-a-leader-by-vaunted-analyst-firm-forrester-research
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/10/serena-named-a-leader-by-vaunted-analyst-firm-forrester-research/#commentsWed, 24 Oct 2012 17:25:37 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=1961I am thrilled to announce Serena has been named a Leader by Forrester Research in its latest Wave ALM Report! This is a great accomplishment, as Forrester is one of the premier technology analyst firms in the world. Serena was recognized for its unique Orchestrated ALM offering, strategy and market presence and, even better, Serena scored a perfect five out of five for our integration and customization capabilities.

Here are some of the key excerpts from the Wave ALM report:

“Serena has made impressive advances at both the individual tool and suite level. Central to its product strategy is ‘orchestration,’ a vision of ALM as an ongoing, rhythmic activity. Not surprisingly, given this vision of a regular flow of activity (conceive, build, test, deploy), Serena has one of the best workflow designers available. Serena’s recent enhancements to its ALM portfolio, such as the Serena Release Manager, provide more support in this end-to-end orchestration model.”

The report went on to say,

“Serena has recognized how important it is for organizations to effectively orchestrate the larger ‘meta-process’ of software development and delivery, which spans the typical activities (coding, testing, building, etc.) that guide the development efforts of other commercial and open source tools.Serena Software tells a very clear story about the challenges orchestrating development and delivery in large IT organizations and how its products help organizations address those challenges.”

The Forrester Wave report was written by analysts Tom Grant, Lyle McNabb and Alissa Anderson, and is a thorough look at the ALM landscape. Analysts perform deep research and analysis into the vendors included in the report and even survey third-party influencers to make sure they are familiar with the technology.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/10/serena-named-a-leader-by-vaunted-analyst-firm-forrester-research/feed/1Come Hear, Watch, Listen and Learn From Serenahttp://www.serena.com/blog/2012/10/come-hear-watch-listen-and-learn-from-serena/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=come-hear-watch-listen-and-learn-from-serena
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/10/come-hear-watch-listen-and-learn-from-serena/#commentsMon, 22 Oct 2012 19:05:25 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=1951We’re thrilled to have Serena executives deliver upcoming presentations on both Dev and Ops topics. Our resident Release Management expert Jeff Westenhaver is set to speak on Oct. 26 at 9 a.m. PT via WebEx in the Software Systems Best Practices eConference. Jeff will be presenting on best practices for application release management and covering success from development through quality assurance and into production. Tune in to hear Jeff’s presentation by registering here.

ITSM guru Ben Cody will be presenting on “IT Economics: Mastering Business Demand” at FUSION 12 on Oct. 30 at 11:15 a.m. PT. If you’re around, come learn how you’ll be able to effectively utilize the resources to meet business demand, eliminate work that doesn’t provide value to the business, make a better case for additional resources where needed, and master the challenge of meeting business demand for IT services.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/10/come-hear-watch-listen-and-learn-from-serena/feed/0Let’s All Vote…For Serena!http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/10/lets-all-votefor-serena/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=lets-all-votefor-serena
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/10/lets-all-votefor-serena/#commentsWed, 17 Oct 2012 15:00:04 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=1933This has been an exceptional year for industry recognition of Serena Software. So far we’ve walked away with awards from SD Times, Network Product Guide and the Tech Awards Circle. All this in addition to being named Innovator of the Year by Pink Elephant!

We’re looking to keep the momentum going with the “Best Hybrid Cloud Solution,” one of the 2012 UP-START Cloud Computing Awards. The 2012 UP-START Cloud Awards recognize cloud-computing contributions to the business and technology community. We think we have a great shot at this given how Serena’s Orchestrated IT offerings are both available from the cloud and help IT organizations deploy their apps to the cloud.

Finalists are selected via a public voting system, which is open now through November 23, 2012. Please help support Serena and vote by clicking here and selecting Serena as the “Best Hybrid Cloud Solution” for this year’s UP-START awards.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/10/lets-all-votefor-serena/feed/0Agile Success Requires Better Communicationhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2012/10/agile2012-survey-says-agile-success-requires-better-communication/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=agile2012-survey-says-agile-success-requires-better-communication
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/10/agile2012-survey-says-agile-success-requires-better-communication/#commentsMon, 15 Oct 2012 18:12:30 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=1918Another survey, another clear sign that IT needs to focus on the entire IT lifecycle in order to be more successful. Earlier this year, we surveyed about 1000 IT professionals, who indicated that development was doing relatively well. However, when it came to upstream and downstream processes like defining requirements and releasing apps into production, they told us a very different story.

Just recently, Serena conducted a survey with Agile2012 attendees and they tell us a similar story. While agile software development was getting good marks for customer satisfaction, it was clear that communication across the enterprise was a major challenge facing IT organizations who wanted to make all of IT more “enterprise agile.” In fact, more than 50 percent of respondents indicated that understanding and also prioritizing customer demand needed the most improvement for agile to be successful. What’s more surprising is that when it came to deploying releases into production, only 30% – 40% of Support and IT Operations – the teams that are the first line of defense for helping customers – had any visibility into releases. Check out the full infographic.

With this in mind, it’s comforting to hear that many of our customers are already looking across the whole IT application and service delivery lifecycle and embracing the concept of Orchestrated IT. By orchestrating planning, development, deployment and service, while optimizing visibility through an executive IT dashboard, IT organizations can better understand how they can better deliver what the business really needs. In fact, Serena customers that have orchestrated information and communication across the whole IT lifecycle have realized some amazing results. “What is Orchestrated IT? Check out this short 2-minute video that explains what Orchestrated IT can do for you.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/10/agile2012-survey-says-agile-success-requires-better-communication/feed/0The Evolution of the Service Cataloghttp://www.serena.com/blog/2012/10/the-evolution-of-the-service-catalog/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-evolution-of-the-service-catalog
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/10/the-evolution-of-the-service-catalog/#commentsThu, 11 Oct 2012 17:18:29 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=1903I just returned from an extended trip to Australia and Asia. I had the privilege of meeting with a number of customers, thanks to our local account teams. It was almost the corporate equivalent of speed dating, but you could say that we’re already “engaged” with these customers, ha-ha.

Service Catalog was a hot topic. The majority of customers were planning rollouts over the next 12 to 18 months. Almost all had plans to go far beyond a traditional IT-centric catalog, and also include other services such as facilities, HR, legal and accounting functions. And that’s how it should be. For catalogs to be adopted, they truly need to be a one stop shop. IT is just one group that supports line-of-business people. In fact, the average employee probably only submits 4 or 5 IT requests a year. But if you consider the number of requests they make to other supporting functions, then we’re talking some real numbers – scores, if not hundreds. Now that’s some volume that can really drive adoption. On average, only 40% of incidents and service requests come through a catalog or self-service portal. To get better numbers, consider expanding the types of services you offer to go beyond IT.

Talk of Service Catalog then leads us into the broader topic of Demand Management. More on that later. In the meantime, if you’re going to Fusion 12 in Dallas later this month, come see my presentation on Demand Management. The title is “IT Economics: Mastering Business Demand” and it’s scheduled for Tuesday, October 30, 11:15 a.m. – 12:15 p.m.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/10/the-evolution-of-the-service-catalog/feed/2Apartments.com Automates DevOps and Lights Up xChange12http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/10/apartments-com-goes-agile-with-serena-itsm-and-release-management/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=apartments-com-goes-agile-with-serena-itsm-and-release-management
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/10/apartments-com-goes-agile-with-serena-itsm-and-release-management/#commentsMon, 01 Oct 2012 20:15:38 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=1856Apartments.com is the #1 online rental search destination and the way they stay #1 is with high velocity product releases and deployments. Matt Stratton of Apartments.com recently lit up xChange12, Serena’s global user conference, with their success story.

Apartments.com‘s technology teams were doing two-week sprints but found that releases needed to be managed better and automation was a must. According to Matt Stratton, Director of Technology Operations at Apartments.com:

“In our business, we can’t afford to have18 month projects for new features. That’s an eternity in the online world. How can you have a two-week sprint and then take three days to deploy an application or new feature? We were very good at creating new products, but we needed to get better at how we managed the releases of these products“

After considering a homegrown solution and consulting Gartner, Apartments.com discovered Serena to be the leader in the release management space and began evaluating our solutions.

In just six weeks Apartments.com implemented Serena’s DevOps solutions, going live with incident management, service request and release automation. The result was a 70% reduction in environmental issues. Such tremendous success led to Apartments.com winning a Serena Innovation Award at xChange12.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/10/apartments-com-goes-agile-with-serena-itsm-and-release-management/feed/0The “Most Complete Solution for Next Generation IT Management” is Serenahttp://www.serena.com/blog/2012/10/the-most-complete-solution-for-next-generation-it-management-is-serena/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-most-complete-solution-for-next-generation-it-management-is-serena
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/10/the-most-complete-solution-for-next-generation-it-management-is-serena/#commentsMon, 01 Oct 2012 15:00:44 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=1846I’m very pleased to let you know that Serena has been recognized by leading research firm, Enterprise Management Associates, as the “Most Complete Solution for Next Generation IT Management (NGITM).” This impressive endorsement was recently announced in the EMA Radar Report.

According to EMA: “There was virtually no aspect of NGITM functionality left unaddressed by Serena. While of recent vintage, its ITSM coverage includes full support for Change, Incident, and Service Catalog. Consistent with its origins, project portfolio and execution are both fully supported, and its support for requirements management is without peer in this report – few other vendors have a dedicated module for this, and Serena’s has been a leading industry product for years… Unlike most other vendors in this report, Serena has rich support for software configuration management, which makes them especially attractive for those seeking a full DevOps solution.”

Wow.

This EMA recognition comes on top of recent praise from other analyst firms such as Gartner, Ovum and Info-Tech Research. Of course, Serena was also fortunate to recently receive product awards from the Network Products Guide and from Pink Elephant.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/10/the-most-complete-solution-for-next-generation-it-management-is-serena/feed/0Put Your Hands Together for Our ‘IT Agility Deserves a Beer’ Twitter Haiku Contest Winnershttp://www.serena.com/blog/2012/09/put-your-hands-together-for-our-it-agility-deserves-a-beer-twitter-haiku-contest-winners/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=put-your-hands-together-for-our-it-agility-deserves-a-beer-twitter-haiku-contest-winners
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/09/put-your-hands-together-for-our-it-agility-deserves-a-beer-twitter-haiku-contest-winners/#commentsMon, 24 Sep 2012 13:00:24 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=1812It is time to name and celebrate the winners of our latest contest. The “IT Agility Deserves a Beer” contest generated many entertaining and creative haikus from a variety of submitters, including some entries from our awesome customers. The contest played in nicely with our recent Orchestrated IT for the Agile Enterprise products launch and generated some nice buzz at Serena xChange as well.

The Twitter-based contest called for contestants to submit a haiku poem expressing their gratitude for IT agility. Winners were selected based on creativity, humor and relevance and announced via Twitter today. The judging panel also verified that all submissions adhered to all of the contest rules and guidelines.

Thanks to the multitude of entrants and also to our judging panel for another fun and worthy contest!

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/09/put-your-hands-together-for-our-it-agility-deserves-a-beer-twitter-haiku-contest-winners/feed/0Orchestrated IT Explained in 2 Minuteshttp://www.serena.com/blog/2012/09/orchestrated-it-explained-in-2-minutes/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=orchestrated-it-explained-in-2-minutes
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/09/orchestrated-it-explained-in-2-minutes/#commentsWed, 19 Sep 2012 19:10:24 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=1797Orchestrated ITis how effective organizations develop and manage IT systems. That’s why Serena created a new 2-minute video to explain what Orchestrated IT is all about. This upbeat video debuted at xChange, Serena’s annual user conference, and received many glowing reviews from IT professionals in the crowd! Watch the video and I guarantee you’ll find yourself getting excited about Orchestrated IT, especially if you’ve been living with disparate teams, processes and tools for years.

Give us just 2 minutes and you’ll be able to see how Serena Orchestrated IT can get your Apps and Ops teams to work perfectly in sync. After watching the video, I encourage you to see Orchestrated IT in action by watching our Doug Serena CIO webisode miniseries that shows an IT leadership team using Orchestrated IT.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/09/orchestrated-it-explained-in-2-minutes/feed/1Heady Maelstrom at xChange12http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/09/heady-maelstrom-at-xchange12/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=heady-maelstrom-at-xchange12
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/09/heady-maelstrom-at-xchange12/#commentsThu, 13 Sep 2012 18:37:30 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=1768So the final prize giveaway has been won and the last canapé served. xChange12 is now in the archive as another stellar success … long live xChange13! I thought I’d share a few reflections on the conference this week with a view from the inside of the heady maelstrom that is the annual user conference.

The voice of the customer has always been the focus of xChange, it is, after all, where the name of the conference comes from. This year we were able to hear more of that voice and there was a real sense of progress and achievement in all the customer presentations. I got the sense that, after decades of striving for a direction, the IT professionals in the room were finally able to drive forward on IT infrastructure projects that would result in better service delivery to the end-user stakeholders.

Take Matt Stratton at Apartments.com. He talked about the transformation his organization effected that resulted in a 70% reduction in environmental issues during delivery and deployment. Consider the time wasted and frustration caused by a failed push to a test environment. Worse still, consider the consequences of a failed push to production. Matt modestly suggested that it was a minor achievement in a whole landscape of reform, but, as I said at the time, “if any organization made only a 7% reduction in errors they would declare victory!”

And Paula Callis at Shelter Insurance spoke about how her organization was critically reviewing service delivery systems. Her organization recognizes that IT must lead the innovation and provide service that excels even before the business asks for it. It is a great sign or organizational maturity when a cadence of review, redefinition and reform exists.

In so many individual conversations with customers this year there was a real sense of pride and achievement. Not only had they shepherded through successfully the applications and features the business demanded, but they had also taken the over the tempo and begun to invest in their systems to better help them continue to meet the demand of the business.

Perhaps we are no longer the cobbler’s children after all.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/09/heady-maelstrom-at-xchange12/feed/0A Buzz in the Air on Day 3 at Serena xChangehttp://www.serena.com/blog/2012/09/a-buzz-in-the-air-on-day-3-at-serena-xchange/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=a-buzz-in-the-air-on-day-3-at-serena-xchange
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/09/a-buzz-in-the-air-on-day-3-at-serena-xchange/#commentsThu, 13 Sep 2012 16:49:52 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=1762…and it is not the after effects of xTravaganza

A demonstration of Serena’s Development Manager kicked things off for the early birds with Mike Troth from R&D describing the persona-based UI workbench and the evolving and rich user experience of Serena’s Orchestrated ALM solutions. Armed with a second coffee, many then headed over to hear Iryna Lutsiuk from the Quality Assurance team reveal an internally developed SBM application for test case management being used to manage test cases, test requirements, test runs across all Application development teams…..oh boy, I lost count of the number of customers asking when they could have it. What a great moment for Iryna and her team. With customers now dazed with excitement, it was time to head over to hear the future of Software Configuration Management and here again, Alex Shevchenko from our R&D team orchestrated even more buzz and excitement and injected some tremendous humor as we neared the end of a terrific xChange12.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/09/a-buzz-in-the-air-on-day-3-at-serena-xchange/feed/0A “Me Too” Continuous Integration momenthttp://www.serena.com/blog/2012/09/a-me-too-continuous-integration-moment/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=a-me-too-continuous-integration-moment
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/09/a-me-too-continuous-integration-moment/#commentsThu, 13 Sep 2012 00:08:20 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=1738I watched a “me too” moment while in the xChange12 breakout session “How to Use the Power of Dimensions CM to Drive Continuous Integration” by Paul Caruana, a member of the Serena Support team. Paul was talking about how Serena uses Jenkins with Dimensions CM to enable continuous integration in our development lab. It was at that point that one of Serena’s customers asked about the ability to integrate Subversion (configuration management), Jenkins (continuous integration) and Dimensions CM (deployment). Before Paul could answer, three other customers added, “We want to do that too. What’s the answer?” As a software provider, we obviously want our customers to use as much of our software as possible. As a company focused on customer satisfaction, this “me too” moment reinforced what we know – we must be able to easily integrate with our customers’ other software investments. BTW … Paul’s answer was “yes”.
]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/09/a-me-too-continuous-integration-moment/feed/8Going Agile with ALMhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2012/09/going-agile-with-alm/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=going-agile-with-alm
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/09/going-agile-with-alm/#commentsWed, 12 Sep 2012 16:47:19 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=1740Day 2 at xChange12

Speeding ALM implementations, Peter Raymond from R&D described Serena’s Orchestrated ALM reference architecture. Walking through domain models, artifact relationships and process models, the reference architecture provides a blueprint to help our customers coordinate and integrate processes and tools across the Application Development and Delivery lifecycle. He then described a customer implementation that was expedited through use of the reference architecture to simply revise and adjust forms, workflows and integrations quickly and efficiently.

There was plenty of excitement when Jack Leon, also from R&D, revealed the evolution of our process-based agile planning solution to achieve end to end agility across the ALM lifecycle. The level of audience participation and engagement revealed a high degree of appreciation from Product owners, Scrum masters, and Development managers and we look forward to working with members of our Special Interest Group as we continue to optimize the agile user experience across planning, development and release.

Matt Stratton from Apartments.com took the agile theme a stage further when he described their ITSM and Release Automation solution. Key highlights and learning included a heavy focus on automation of manual deployment tasks and activities, a need for a well-defined branching and merging strategy in development to streamline activity from the delivery teams, and a re-orientation of roles/responsibilities across Development, QA and Tech Operations. The resulting applause wrapped up a terrific day at Serena xChange12 as we headed to the xTravaganza party at the House of Blues.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/09/going-agile-with-alm/feed/0Losing Weight in Las Vegashttp://www.serena.com/blog/2012/09/losing-weight-in-las-vegas/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=losing-weight-in-las-vegas
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/09/losing-weight-in-las-vegas/#commentsWed, 12 Sep 2012 05:37:44 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=1713Las Vegas is a tough town to in which think about losing weight. Yet, I found myself dwelling on that very topic after Serena’s CEO, John Nugent, finished his keynote yesterday’s xChange12. He introduced this notion of “properly weighted” tools. So often I’ve met with companies who, for all of the right reasons, have a complex environment of software applications accumulated over the years. When faced with the need for efficiency gains, they first turn to their software tools in their portfolio with a “can do” attitude. Often times these tools are overweight for what is needed; “it can do that too” is the common mantra. Let me suggest that the “should do” approach is to first look at process improvement to achieve efficiency gains, followed by software tool selection that best supports the desired process. The end result from this approach will likely be a lighter weight, lower cost solution that better meets your needs in a timely manner.
]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/09/losing-weight-in-las-vegas/feed/0xChange12 Day 2 Highlightshttp://www.serena.com/blog/2012/09/xchange12-day-2-highlights/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=xchange12-day-2-highlights
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/09/xchange12-day-2-highlights/#commentsWed, 12 Sep 2012 02:04:16 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=1732Day two is almost over but for the shouting, er, the xTravaganza. More about that later.

After yesterday’s focus on Serena’s vision and roadmap, today was all about our customers. We started off early this morning with 400 people assembled in general session, today’s consisting of an often inspiring set of presentations, including the Serena Innovation Awards, the now traditional Fact or Fiction customer panel and the new Serena Charity Challenge winner.

Serena founder Doug Troxel skyped in for the Innovation Awards ceremony, while they were handed out by Doug Serena, CIO. The Douggie for Orchestrated Apps went to Katherine Chu of Navy Federal Credit Union, while the Douggie for Orchestrated Ops went to Peter Rizzo of Interactive Data Corporation and the Douggie for Orchestrated IT went to Matt Stratton of Apartments.com.

I then had some fun with three Fact or Fiction panelists: Craig Kaley of LenderLive, Paula Callis of Shelter Insurance, and Justin Arnoldi of Blue Turtle. They gamely passed judgement on a series of provocative statements, providing interesting commentary about each.

We ended the morning on a truly uplifting note, as we awarded the Oregon Humane Society with a check for $5,000 AND a new surgery scheduling system built in Serena Business Manager. This was the result of the Serena Charity Challenge, “won” by Robin Drummond of Kaiser Permanente, who nominated the Oregon Humane Society and built the app. Serena’s contribution is the $5K check and freely providing access from the cloud for them to use their new system. Almost as sweet as a new puppy!

After an afternoon of great breakouts and a great talk by Matt Stratton about the DevOps accomplishments at Apartments.com, we’re now assembling at the House of Blues for the 2012 xTravaganza!

Great day!

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/09/xchange12-day-2-highlights/feed/0Full House for DevOps at xChange12http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/09/full-house-for-devops-at-xchange12/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=full-house-for-devops-at-xchange12
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/09/full-house-for-devops-at-xchange12/#commentsTue, 11 Sep 2012 15:15:48 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=1723The interest and importance of release management is evident among Serena’s customers. Here at Day 1 of Serena xChange12 Global User Conference in the Release Management track, we had a packed house during Julian Fish’ “Integrating Service Management and Release Management for Dev and Ops” presentation. Julian is the Product Owner for Serena Release Manager. And in all the sessions we had great audience interaction!

In her Release Train presentation, Kim Beckham, Director of PMO, talked about Serena’s change to the use of our Release Train technology (part of Serena Release Manager) to improve product delivery. Several attendees are looking at doing just the same, took lots of notes and asked many questions. Great session!

The last session of the day was presented by Jack Leon, Development Manager, and he discussed the ITIL V3 compliant Definitive Media Library (DML) as provided in Serena Release Manager.

Stay tuned for more updates and customer experiences from xChange12! In the meantime, learn more about Serena Release Manager, the Enterprise DevOps solution.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/09/full-house-for-devops-at-xchange12/feed/0Leadership is Key to Success with DevOpshttp://www.serena.com/blog/2012/09/leadership-is-key-to-success-with-devops/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=leadership-is-key-to-success-with-devops
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/09/leadership-is-key-to-success-with-devops/#commentsTue, 11 Sep 2012 14:28:25 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=1718Greetings from Serena xChange! We had a wonderful first day yesterday. DevOps was one of the hottest topics. In several 1:1 conversations, as well as the panel discussion I participated in, customers were keen to discuss how to bring dev and ops together to accelerate innovation and improve service quality.

One of the biggest considerations is an adoption plan. Yes unified tooling to provide orchestration and end to end visibility is a must have, but the beyond that, the biggest challenge is affecting cultural change. The organizations that are on the right track have appointed leaders that have served in both Development and Operations capacities. Those folks “get it”, and are well on their way to orchestrating IT in their respective companies!

More on adoption strategies after xChange. For those attending this week, you can look forward to a series of great customer presentations today and a fun time tonight. For those not at xChange, hope to see you here next year!

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/09/leadership-is-key-to-success-with-devops/feed/0DevOps at Serena xChange12 Day 1http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/09/devops-at-serena-xchange12-day-1/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=devops-at-serena-xchange12-day-1
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/09/devops-at-serena-xchange12-day-1/#commentsTue, 11 Sep 2012 02:51:19 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=1696Today was day 1 of Serena’s xChange12. DevOps was a major theme. Our customers are quite clear on this topic: it’s not Dev or Ops but rather Dev and Ops. The real value Serena provides is that we have both feet planted firmly in the Development and Operations domains. Gartner wrote of Serena, “Differentiation is strength in release management, giving Serena the most complete DevOps story.” Our SBM-based, fully integrated, process centric, approach to DevOps will surely help our customers realize the benefits the benefits they seek.
]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/09/devops-at-serena-xchange12-day-1/feed/0Great Day 1!http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/09/great-day-1/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=great-day-1
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/09/great-day-1/#commentsTue, 11 Sep 2012 00:02:39 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=1706The first day of xChange12 is all but in the record books, and a great one it was.

The morning keynote sessions were fun, informative and well received. We had some 400 people in the room at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center with another 200 tuned into the live webcast.

Kevin Parker welcomed everyone, and then brought up a “surprise” attendee – Doug Serena, CIO. Doug Serena updated everyone about how his company had acquired their largest competitor, the one they vanquished in the videos, and that he was here at xChange12 to learn how the newest advances in Orchestrated IT could help him bring the new people and systems up to snuff.

John Nugent’s keynote was passionate and informative, after which I had the privilege of interviewing Safeway’s Larry McAuley about his company’s transformation into an Online Agile Enterprise and how Orchestrated IT is helping them make that journey.

Killer demos of the latest in Orchestrated IT systems followed, as did an afternoon of breakouts.

My discussions with attendees indicated that everyone was getting lots out of the proceedings and that lots of ideas are indeed getting xChanged!

Can’t wait for tomorrow.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/09/great-day-1/feed/0Newly Updated Solutions Across Orchestrated IThttp://www.serena.com/blog/2012/09/newly-updated-solutions-across-orchestrated-it/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=newly-updated-solutions-across-orchestrated-it
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/09/newly-updated-solutions-across-orchestrated-it/#commentsMon, 10 Sep 2012 07:00:59 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=1633The new and enhanced products introduced today add developer-driven continuous delivery with cloud provisioning; IT catalog, control and analytics on phones and tablets; and full-cycle social IT capabilities to Serena’s Orchestrated IT solutions. Thus Serena’s Orchestrated IT solutions now provide powerful support for the agile enterprise.

Development-Driven Release Management and Cloud Deployment

Serena Release Manager has added Development-driven release management to its already rich support for Operations-driven release management. Development-driven releases are characterized by continuous delivery, which are especially useful during pre-production phases of the application delivery lifecycle.

Serena Release Manager also supports intelligent deployments, which deploy only what has changed, reducing deployment time and costs, and minimizing business risk. Last but not least, Serena Release Manager now provides enhanced cloud deployment ability, including scheduling and tracking deployments to Amazon Web Services.

Social IT Collaboration

Serena Service Manager is the first Serena Orchestrated IT solution to incorporate the new Orchestrated IT Feed. Leveraging social IT capabilities to resolve issues quickly, the Orchestrated IT Feed allows stakeholders to monitor and participate in a customized activity stream and make more informed decisions as a team. Stakeholders can find and collaborate with an expert, “follow” an item, person or issue, and receive updates via Twitter, Yammer, email or SMS.

Mobile Catalog and Requests

The new Serena Mobile Request Center takes the request fulfillment process mobile, allowing both business and IT users to conveniently browse services and associated SLAs, as well as submit, monitor, fulfill or approve requests from any mobile device. With support including iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry and Android, Serena Mobile Request Center enables approved users in the front of back office to monitor the status of requests and key metrics on the go.

Mobile IT Analytics

The new Serena Mobile Dashboard brings important IT analytics to the Apple iPad. With executive adoption of tablets for business on the rise, the Serena Mobile Dashboard lets IT executives use the iPad to access and interact with the latest KPIs and dashboards. Intuitive drill-downs, simple data manipulation and rapid personalization make it easy to find the right information at the right time to run IT more efficiently.

Serena Business Manager is the process management platform at the core of all Serena Orchestrated IT solutions. The new Orchestrated IT Feed, Serena’s latest innovation in social IT, makes it easy for IT stakeholders to access and collaborate on the latest information relevant to their jobs. Stakeholders can choose to receive task-related updates in real time via Twitter, Yammer, email or SMS.

Discover the power of Orchestrated IT!Watch a 2-minute video describing the challenges of coordinating Apps and Ops, and how Serena Orchestrated IT can get IT to work perfectly in sync.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/09/newly-updated-solutions-across-orchestrated-it/feed/0xChange12 Kicks Off!http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/09/xchange12-kicks-off/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=xchange12-kicks-off
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/09/xchange12-kicks-off/#commentsMon, 10 Sep 2012 07:00:49 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=1644Serena customers, partners and staff from around the world are gathered today at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas for xChange12, our 16th Annual Global User Conference. This year we’re pleased to welcome 250 customers, up 20% from last year’s very successful gathering. While most attendees are from North America, others are traveling in from Europe, South America, Australia and Asia.

Attendees will be choosing from breakout sessions across six tracks, encompassing Orchestrated IT for Engagement and Visibility, Orchestrated Application Development, Orchestrated Release Management, Orchestrated Service Management & Operations, Serena Business Manager, and Mainframe Solutions. Many of these breakout sessions are delivered by Serena customers themselves.

The keynote sessions will provide visibility into Serena’s vision and roadmap, including demonstrations of Serena’s latest solutions. We’re also going to announce several winners: of the Serena Charity Challenge and of the “Douggies”, innovation awards recognizing outstanding Serena customers.

Oh yeah, we’re also going to have a rocking party the last night at the House of Blues.

Stay tuned to the Serena Blog for regular updates from xChange. You can also follow the goings-on via Twitter hashtag #SerenaXchange.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/09/xchange12-kicks-off/feed/0Orchestrated IT for Agile Enterpriseshttp://www.serena.com/blog/2012/09/orchestrated-it-for-agile-enterprises/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=orchestrated-it-for-agile-enterprises
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/09/orchestrated-it-for-agile-enterprises/#commentsMon, 10 Sep 2012 07:00:05 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=1627Orchestrated IT – a modern and agile approach to IT Management – is now moving to its next phase of evolution. This big step keeps O-IT in the forefront of IT management for agile enterprises, in part by richly supporting today’s technology imperatives of mobile, social and cloud. You can learn about how the various O-IT solutions are being upgraded here.

But first, what are Agile Enterprises? Today’s business is increasingly conducted online, with those interactions increasingly involving phones, tablets, vehicles, sensors and other smart devices. This ubiquitous connectivity of smart devices and online commerce is reshaping industries and birthing new ones. Turning this trend to advantage requires that enterprises be agile in their use of applications and IT systems. In short, it requires them to be Agile Enterprises.

Dot-coms – as pure online businesses – have the most obvious need for IT agility. But they are far from alone. Financial services have long been online dependent businesses. Online agility has now spread to retail, government, hospitality, entertainment, manufacturing and transportation. Indeed, the winning organizations in nearly every industry and public sector are now Agile Enterprises.

Agile enterprises use IT strategically, mastering the ability to sense and respond to IT requirements and opportunities faster and more assuredly than their competitors. They can do this best by utilizing Orchestrated IT systems that leverage today’s technology imperatives.

To help spread the word about IT’s essential role in enterprise agility, we’re sponsoring a #GiveITaBeer haiku contest on Twitter. Check it out.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/09/orchestrated-it-for-agile-enterprises/feed/0Sunday Prep for xChange12 @ Mandalayhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2012/09/sunday-prep-for-xchange12-mandalay/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=sunday-prep-for-xchange12-mandalay
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/09/sunday-prep-for-xchange12-mandalay/#commentsSun, 09 Sep 2012 19:45:31 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=1697Dotting the i’s and crossing the T’s for tomorrow’s open.
]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/09/sunday-prep-for-xchange12-mandalay/feed/0Understand User Experience at Serena xChange12http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/08/understand-user-experience-at-serena-xchange12/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=understand-user-experience-at-serena-xchange12
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/08/understand-user-experience-at-serena-xchange12/#commentsWed, 29 Aug 2012 16:20:00 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=1609User experience is about more than just UI; it’s about the behavior of people. It’s about designing services, systems, and applications for what people actually do (naturally) or what they could do ideally — not what we “think” they currently do. Interactions should be natural and therefore the design should be silent (not in the way of the person). Using an application (even for everyday tasks) should be… well… engaging.

This isn’t easy. Sure, there are usability and UX design principles and competencies, but there is nothing more telling and more accurate than learning the human using the application (you). And I don’t mean just learning your name, responsibilities, and background. I mean learning your psychology. Now. Don’t get all creeped out on me! Modeling systems after human behavior has led to many of the amazing gadgets and apps we enjoy today. And of course, as you might imagine, there’s no way to get it right — only to begin to engage, entice, and influence you, making your use of an application an enjoyable and seamless experience. And of course, we (designers) also try to create experiences that you may not know or even realize you’re going to like until you use them! And lastly, we try to design with intent (influencing behavior rather than modeling it). This approach has led innovation in app design and development to a new level. So in a nutshell, UX designers study what makes you YOU, so that we may understand how you perceive yourself, solve problems, make decisions, are influenced by others, and what motivates you to behave a certain way.

All this leads me to invite you to join my team at xChange12, our annual global user conference, for an ALM User Experience study. We’ll look at some cool stuff and ask you some interesting questions. You won’t want to miss it because you’ll be entered in to a grand prize drawing!

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/08/understand-user-experience-at-serena-xchange12/feed/0Raise Your Glass and Cheer IT Agilityhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2012/08/raise-your-glass-and-cheer-it-agility/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=raise-your-glass-and-cheer-it-agility
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/08/raise-your-glass-and-cheer-it-agility/#commentsMon, 27 Aug 2012 13:00:28 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=1593Today’s successful enterprises are quicker than their competition when it comes to rolling out and updating externally facing apps and online services. We at Serena have found that Orchestrated IT helps achieve this sort of IT agility. And we’ve also found that the heroes who work in world-class IT organizations tend to like craft beers. Surprised? I think not.

So we’re looking to celebrate IT agility through poetry, haikus in particular. The winning haiku will win a full year of monthly craft beer deliveries.

Of course the contest is being held on Twitter under the hashtag #GiveITaBeer.

So tap into your creative side for a chance to win beer for a year or cash prizes. Simply thank IT or describe IT agility in the form of a tweeted, 17-syllable Haiku. The contest will kick off on Monday, August 27, 2012 at 9:01 a.m. PT and ends September 21, 2012 at 12:01 p.m. PT.

To enter, write and submit a Haiku poem (Three lines of 5-7-5 syllables) showing your appreciation for IT Agility. Each line of the Haiku should be separated by a period, comma or slash. All entries must be submitted via Twitter to @Serena_Software and include the hash tag #GiveITaBeer.

This is your chance to win yourself or your IT department Beer for a Year!

A panel of judges will select winners based on creativity, humor and relevance. Winners will be announced via Twitter on Monday, September 24, 2012.

According to a survey of global CIOs IDC published in Information Week, the primary focus for companies’ innovation plans is making business processes more efficient. Their top concern is that they won’t be able to innovate fast enough to meet business goals.

Process automation offers the most cost-effective way to make business and IT processes more efficient, reduce costs, ensure compliance and provide both speed and consistency in how organizations conduct and adapt business activities. Expanding process automation and using automation to connect business and IT are both major parts of ITIL best practices. But adoption of process automation typically lags well behind what is possible. Obstacles include lack of clear ownership for process automation initiatives, especially when the processes cross organizational boundaries; concern that automation will create frustrations by imposing inflexibility; experience with process-automation methods that are hard to adapt; lack of clear and complete metrics for deeply assessing how well process automation is working and where it can be improved.

In spite of the need for better automation that can be easily adapted, most IT service management (ITSM) solutions offer limited process automation capabilities – and what’s available for managing processes in these products is not designed to support the flexibility, visibility and extensibility that’s a critical need. This gap exists because ITSM products have traditionally been built to focus on databases and data management, not on process modeling and process orchestration.

Because of this key absence in capabilities, some IT organizations have “rolled their own” ITSM solutions, using platforms like Lotus Notes to take advantage of complex workflow features and easier report editing. But this approach carries high costs for licenses and development, no built-in ITSM-specific functionality or ITIL processes, and challenging upgrades. Rather than adding value by adapting a packaged ITSM product to meet needs, the IT staff spends time duplicating the work that ITSM products experts have built into their products.

To fully realize the advantages of process automation and IT service management best practices (as well as faster time to value), look for a new class of ITSM solutions that have a full-featured process management platform built in. The availability of graphical process modeling and reporting built into process management platforms means that IT organizations can expedite process automation, improve visibility, and adapt rapidly to address changing demands. This ability to focus on process and adaptability without sacrificing data management also simplifies the extension of process automation to diverse business activities, not only improving IT service but also strengthening the interconnections with the business.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/08/the-value-of-process-automation-in-it-service-management/feed/0Shiny New Corporate Headquartershttp://www.serena.com/blog/2012/08/shiny-new-corporate-headquarters/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=shiny-new-corporate-headquarters
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/08/shiny-new-corporate-headquarters/#commentsWed, 01 Aug 2012 17:08:46 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=1553Yesterday – July 31, 2012 – was a red letter day for Serena, the day we moved into our new HQ space in San Mateo. No, not the old HQ space in San Mateo. That was years ago and well up the hill on 92. Our new HQ occupies the fourth floor of 1850 Gateway Drive, a great building in a great location.

First the location: just inside the elbow of 101 and 92, it feels like we’re in Foster City, because, well, we’re across the street from Foster City, a mere block from the Metro Tower. This puts us within walking distance of restaurants, hotels and all manner of stores. Think of this spot as the commuting center-of-gravity for the entire Bay Area. Our East Bay folks come off the San Mateo bridge right into the office, Bay-side and City commuters come right off 101, while western peninsula folks like me take 280 and 92, avoiding 101 altogether.

Most importantly to the evident happiness of everyone here at Serena HQ is the excellent layout, light and size of this full floor space. Unlike our previous Redwood City HQ, which was always too large (but such a deal back in the day), this 21K sq. ft. space is roomy but cozy, which imparts an energy and sense of teamwork that our formerly wide open spaces lacked. Light streams in from all four directions, along with views of water on the Bay side and fog creeping over the Santa Cruz Mountains on the Pacific side. The renowned beauty of the Bay Area sure isn’t hidden here!

We’re still unpacking a bit, but are ready to host customers, not to mention Serena staffers from Hillsboro, Woodland Hills, Colorado Springs, Reston, the Big Apple, St Albans, München, Köln, Kiev, Paris, Milano, Madrid, Stockholm, São Paulo, Sydney, Melbourne, Singapore, Tokyo, Seoul and Bangalore. This isn’t the largest Serena facility, but it is one of the nicest.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/08/shiny-new-corporate-headquarters/feed/1Orchestrated IT Enters Its Primehttp://www.serena.com/blog/2012/07/orchestrated-it-enters-its-prime/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=orchestrated-it-enters-its-prime
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/07/orchestrated-it-enters-its-prime/#commentsTue, 31 Jul 2012 16:46:32 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=1540We’re proud to announce that the Orchestrated IT advances we announced in March are now generally available. Version 3.5 of Serena’s Orchestrated IT solutions offer major advances in usability, performance, and your ability to coordinate both application and operational changes through a consistent UI and powerful process-based platform. Your IT-powered business is in for a major boost in speed and agility.

The latest version of our solutions include significant enhancements, including the ability to coordinate both application and operations changes through a consistent user interface and with a unified IT inbox. Additional enhancements include:

Dashboard 3.5: The NEW Serena Mobile Dashboard allows IT executives to use mobile devices like the iPad to interact with the latest KPIs and dashboards. Intuitive drill-downs, simple data manipulation and rapid personalization make it even easier to find the right IT metrics no matter where you are.

Request Center 3.5: Serena Request Center now comes with over 30 pre-built services, or “starter packs,” making it easier for you to jump-start your rollout. Knowledge management articles can now be made available for public or internal use, and controlled down to departmental or individual level.

Service Manager 3.5: The newest release of Serena Service Manager now makes it easier to assign tasks to groups or specific individuals and quickly review all tickets previously submitted by a user – further helping expedite issue resolution.

Development Manager 3.5: The latest version of Development Manager includes enhancements such as work-area client compatibility, event hooks for validation, enhancements to refactoring views and much more.

Version 3.5 of Serena’s Orchestrated IT solutions can be downloaded from the My Downloads section of the Serena Support site.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/07/orchestrated-it-enters-its-prime/feed/0xChange12: Intensive Training Courses at Half Off!http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/07/xchange12-intensive-training-courses-at-half-off/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=xchange12-intensive-training-courses-at-half-off
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/07/xchange12-intensive-training-courses-at-half-off/#commentsThu, 26 Jul 2012 21:22:13 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=1525Get the very best in Serena Education in an accelerated, high energy learning environment! All at a supremely discounted rate, as much as 50-60%, depending on the class. If you are joining us this fall for Serena xChange12 and you want to maximize the use of our solutions, then enroll in a post-conference training session.

The courses will be taught by our Education Instructors and begin immediately after xChange12 on Thursday, September 13 and conclude on Friday, September 14. Courses that are normally 3-4 days will be collapsed into a 2-day intensive format. Same classes, just packed into less time.

The perks you’ll enjoy:

A huge discount off our regular listed price: each class is $1,000.

The same low room rates for the extra nights.

Breakfast and lunch during training days!

The option to add additional students from your organization at the same discounted rate of $1,000 per student.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/07/xchange12-intensive-training-courses-at-half-off/feed/0Serena xChange12: Over 80 Breakout Sessions!http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/07/serena-xchange12-over-80-breakout-sessions/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=serena-xchange12-over-80-breakout-sessions
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/07/serena-xchange12-over-80-breakout-sessions/#commentsThu, 19 Jul 2012 18:01:57 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=1506We’re counting down to xChange12, Serena’s global user conference in Las Vegas from September 10-12. If you are or plan on joining us, now is the time to start choosing breakout sessions to attend! There are over 80 sessions in six different tracks. Choosing amongst these sessions from Serena experts, successful customers and value-added partners will be tough, so consider inviting your colleagues to come to xChange to cover all the bases. There’s still time to register and take advantage of a special deal through July 31.

Orchestrated Service Management and Operations, covering IT service management

Serena Business Manager (SBM)

Mainframe Solutions

Also, we are proud to announce that 25 customers will be speaking about the above topics, specifically how Serena’s solutions have supported their business and IT success. Here are a few that you won’t want to miss:

Delta Airlines: Improving the Path to Production in CICS and DB2 Environments

SunGard: Sharing Lessons Learned and Best Practices on the Journey to ITIL Maturity

McGraw Hill Financial: Best Practices for Implementing SBM and Serena Service Manager

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/07/serena-xchange12-over-80-breakout-sessions/feed/0Where to See Serena Software this Summerhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2012/07/where-to-see-serena-software-this-summer/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=where-to-see-serena-software-this-summer
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/07/where-to-see-serena-software-this-summer/#commentsThu, 12 Jul 2012 15:12:59 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=1488Serena just began shipping several new products. And there’s no better way to view the latest features than live. Catch Serena at any of the three shows detailed below to get personalized demos of our award-winning solutions from our product experts!

At Agile2012 attendees will explore the latest Agile development methodologies, technologies, tools, leadership principles, management philosophies and processes. Serena will communicate how our Orchestrated IT solutions help the entire IT lifecycle become agile, our philosophy on linking Dev and Ops, and what “self-service deployment” means. Also, team members will be on hand to demonstrate the latest version of Serena Release Manager, the only release management offering on the market today that leverages a process-based approach.

This event features multi-tracks with 90-minute roundtable discussion style sessions, addressing 24 of today’s most pressing ITSM issues. The goal of PinkForum12 is to provide ITSM Leaders with essential awareness, insight, guidance and strong advice for ensuring that critical issues are being addressed. We will present the updated Serena Service Manager, winner of the ITIL Innovation of the Year Award, Tech Awards Circle Bronze Award and Network Products Guide Best IT Product.

We hope to meet you at one of these locations!

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/07/where-to-see-serena-software-this-summer/feed/0Keys to Adaptable Process Automation for IT Serviceshttp://www.serena.com/blog/2012/07/keys-to-adaptable-process-automation-for-it-services/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=keys-to-adaptable-process-automation-for-it-services
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/07/keys-to-adaptable-process-automation-for-it-services/#commentsThu, 05 Jul 2012 19:02:54 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=1477IT organizations are under pressure to increase automation to reduce costs and increase fulfillment and compliance. There are two main types of automation that IT organizations use to increase efficiency: both process automation and runbook automation provide the ability to create, orchestrate, manage and report on workflows that can operate across the systems that support IT services and assets. The differences between these types of automation are both their focus and complexity:

Runbook automation focuses on automating the standard procedures for operating the IT infrastructure and applications (the service supply). These workflows are typically standard routines with limited variations and notifications/reporting.

Process automation focuses on automating the processes that deliver all kinds of services to users (the service demand). These workflows can be complex and sometimes are designed to include many notifications throughout the process, drawing in both other applications and people from IT and business to act on issues or exceptions. These workflows may require frequent review and adaptation.

Process automation is not limited to IT activities; it can also cover business activities such as hiring and provisioning new employees or fulfilling requests for training. Process automation can be developed using a variety of programs (not all with optimal outcomes, but more on that later…), from ERP systems to BPM platforms. The key for success with process automation – especially when it crosses organizational boundaries – is that the platform you use has these attributes that ensure simplicity, adaptability and visibility:

A model that is designed specifically for managing processes, with a simple interface that enables authorized users to proactively orchestrate change – without having to wait

A graphical process modeler that makes processes easy to create, review and modify so you can quickly adapt as needed – without having to write code

Audit information presented in reports that are easy to create and modify so you can easily explore information ad hoc – without having to fly blind

Serena has indeed received four product and leadership awards so far in 2012, along with placement in some prominent Top Companies listings. Together these add up to independent confirmation of our status as one of the most important software companies in the world and of Orchestrated IT as one of the most relevant concepts in the world of IT management.

This last award is very meaningful given Pink Elephant’s status as the world’s leading ITSM consultancy.

Serena was also recognized as a member of the SD Times 100 for 2012, marking the ninth consecutive year that Serena has made that prestigious list.

Serena has also been recently recognized as a major Silicon Valley / San Francisco Bay Area company. The San Francisco Business Times ranks Serena as the ninth largest software company on the peninsula, while the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal ranks Serena #18 on their Top 25 Software Companies list.

Taken together, this public recognition reflects the positive work that Serena people do every day, and the great results that our customers get from our software.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/06/serena-software-tops-multiple-awards/feed/0IT Service Desks – What’s Next?http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/06/it-service-desks-whats-next/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=it-service-desks-whats-next
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/06/it-service-desks-whats-next/#commentsMon, 25 Jun 2012 19:46:05 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=1454I get some interesting insights about the future of technology by talking to the teenagers next door. (Example: last year I asked the older one if he wanted a iPad to use at college. This unintentionally hilarious question elicited the response that iPads are ”just giant iTouches” and “for old people.” Ouch.)

In spite of the risk of appearing foolish again, I asked him a different question yesterday: what’s the most important technology he uses? Easy: his phone. Because he can get most of what he needs from that one source.

This generation is used to technology as the delivery system. They expect the process of finding and requesting and getting anything to be centralized, straightforward and user-centric. He missed the decades when technology and applications were built in silos, and users had to be trained to know where and how to get what they needed.

When we’re at work, we increasingly rely on technology (and therefore on IT) to fulfill needs for all kinds of services and business activities. In response, the purpose and scope of the IT Service Desk has evolved, but expectations and impatience continue to grow.

Beyond Traditional IT Tasks

The Service Desk is no longer just for reporting problems – in many cases it’s Grand Central Station, providing access to requests for all kinds of services and information. Innovative IT organizations are adopting a centralized, straightforward and user-centric approach to fulfilling user requests and addressing their issues with a new kind of Service Desk that flips the focus from the controlling technology supply to delivering on service demand – while managing complexity without exposing it to users. Today’s Service Desk has become a unified User Request Center that allows both IT staff and users greater visibility and adaptability.

How has your IT organization expanded the role of the Service Desk? What are your plans for future enhancement? For ideas on transforming your IT organization, listen to the on-demand webcast Serena on Serena: 30 Days to a Complete Makeover. Serena’s own IT team shares how they rolled out Serena Request Center, showcasing over 90 business and IT services to 800 employees – in just 30 days!

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/06/it-service-desks-whats-next/feed/0DevOps Collaboration and Effective Release Managementhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2012/06/devops-collaboration-and-effective-release-management/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=devops-collaboration-and-effective-release-management
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/06/devops-collaboration-and-effective-release-management/#commentsThu, 14 Jun 2012 17:06:01 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=1442Change: it is what we are all about. The rate of change is something every organization should measure. It happens everywhere in the business but it is often the changes in IT systems that have the biggest impact. Who controls those changes has long been a closely guarded privilege. But today Release Management is a board level discussion because it affects growth at one extreme and risk at the other.

The development teams are tasked with creating new systems to meet the needs of the business. The operations teams are concerned with availability of services. While the motto of Ops might be “if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it” the Dev teams are always eager to deliver “faster, smaller, cheaper.” The tension that results from this is compounded by who Release Management reports to. If they report to Dev, there is pressure to release more and more quickly to meet time-to-market constraints. If Release Management reports to Ops, the pressure is to slow the rate of change and reduce risk.

Not surprisingly then, the relationship between Dev and Ops has too often been adversarial. In any IT shop there are numerous stories told of the developers not testing before releasing and of change managers who never approve any changes.

The DevOps movement tries to address that by stating the obvious truth: without collaboration release management will fail. Getting Dev and Ops on the same page and getting them to understand each other’s needs is just the first step.

Getting Dev and Ops to trust each other is critical. Creating systems that integrate the activities of Dev and Ops makes the biggest single difference. The most effective tool for that is an online release calendar, which shows both Dev and Ops what is planned to release and when. By making the updating of this calendar an automatic byproduct of the development activities, the Operations team is informed early on about proposed and in-motion releases.

Ops now can have a meaningful conversation with Dev about load balancing the release schedule months ahead of the release window instead of the morning before the release. Dev can see the open release holes and manage their project to those dates. And when the inevitable date change happens Dev and Ops stakeholders can be alerted and can react and even sign off to say they have absorbed the impact – or not.

DevOps is a collaborative approach to Release Management. But let me leave you with this thought: who should DevOps report to?

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/06/devops-collaboration-and-effective-release-management/feed/0Serena Social IT Game Reveals CIO Prioritieshttp://www.serena.com/blog/2012/06/serena-social-it-game-reveals-cio-priorities/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=serena-social-it-game-reveals-cio-priorities
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/06/serena-social-it-game-reveals-cio-priorities/#commentsWed, 06 Jun 2012 14:38:24 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=1426Over the past couple of weeks we have been traveling around the country as part of a 28-city tour to find out what IT really thinks. Stops included Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, New York, Phoenix and San Diego; and this week we are in Washington DC.

The very creative team here at Serena has come up with a fun and interactive Social IT Game that challenges IT executives to decide what is most important to them in the areas of Demand Management, Requirements Management, Development, Release Management and Service Management. But what is truly fascinating is seeing how those same executives rank the priorities of their peers.

All executives saw “Business Growth” as a priority but when it came to understanding what their colleagues wanted, the gaps revealed much about how deeply ingrained the siloed approach to IT continues to be. For example Release Managers rated “A Common Release Process” as their highest priority but Service Managers set “An Integrated Release Calendar” as their top pick. However, none of the Development Managers guessed that that would be number one for their Service Manager teammates. We will publish the full results of the Social IT Game later in the year.

The show is on the road until October. If you come to the event we will provide you with your own personal score compared to the industry data we’re collecting. Plus, we’ll feed you and give you the chance to win cool prizes. Look for an event near you.

See you there! Oh, and bring your iPad or iPhone.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/06/serena-social-it-game-reveals-cio-priorities/feed/1Creating a Contemporary Face of IThttp://www.serena.com/blog/2012/05/creating-a-contemporary-face-of-it/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=creating-a-contemporary-face-of-it
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/05/creating-a-contemporary-face-of-it/#commentsThu, 31 May 2012 17:22:18 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=1402
I’ve been talking to a lot of IT people about their ideal interface to users. At our last xChange User Conference, I ducked out for coffee with a VP of Operations at a financial services company, and we came up with this:

Step 1: Provide a polished and professional web experience.

IT should present its services in a consumer-quality interface designed from the consumers’ perspective. Make sure the site is easy to use by controlling the complexity in the background. And unify IT and business services in a way that makes sense to users. Sure, unifying lots of diverse services sounds like increasing complexity, but it doesn’t seem complex to users if the definition and presentation of their service options makes sense to them. The biggest challenge is hiding that complexity, which requires a well-connected and orchestrated system that unifies the information and automates the processes across business strategy, IT Ops and Application Development.

Step 2: Make search a central facility.

Customers are used to Googling for what they want on the web; provide the same interaction model. Of course, you need a well-written and fresh knowledge base so there are useful search results when users need information. The goal is getting needs met fast, with as little intervention as possible. Think of users the same way the business thinks of its customers.

Step 3: Be transparent: set expectations up-front on service cost, turn-around time, etc.

Give users insight into choices, let them discover answers on their own, and give them real-time access to the status of requests or issues they submit. Let them help you continually improve (and avoid follow-up calls or tickets) via satisfaction surveys that rate the service, quality of knowledge articles, etc.

Step 4: Measure and adapt.

Doing this right is a continual improvement journey. You’re looking for ways to make processes smarter, to trim costs and time, to add and extend services and options, to satisfy users. With good metrics and reporting – which means also having the ability to drill down and explore – you can find areas that need to be adapted. And you can communicate your progress to stakeholders.

What do you think? Would this meet your needs for service management and delivery? Please add your comments here.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/05/creating-a-contemporary-face-of-it/feed/0New Serena Requirements Manager Solution + Orchestrated ALM Updateshttp://www.serena.com/blog/2012/05/new-serena-requirements-manager-solution-orchestrated-alm-updates/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=new-serena-requirements-manager-solution-orchestrated-alm-updates
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/05/new-serena-requirements-manager-solution-orchestrated-alm-updates/#commentsMon, 21 May 2012 17:36:02 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=1382I’m very excited to announce that our newest Orchestrated IT solution, Serena Requirements Manager, is now available! Powered by Dimensions RM, Prototype Composer and Serena Business Manager, Serena Requirements Manager provides comprehensive capabilities to orchestrate the entire requirements lifecycle. This release of Requirements Manager introduces process orchestration capabilities to help all stakeholders more easily review, approve and manage changes to requirements. Instead of being forced to go into requirements tools, stakeholders can now use a business-friendly user interface to quickly approve and access requirements documents.

User interface for approvals

When coupled with the Serena Dashboard, Requirements Manager gives customers many new metrics to help manage their requirements process. Pre-configured metrics include KPIs for requirements approval status, iterations, orphaned requirements and more.

Requirements Manager Dashboard

We’ve also released several important updates to our other Orchestrated IT products, including Serena Dashboard 2.1, Release Manager 2.1 and Development Manager 1.2.

In addition to the new requirements KPIs, Serena Dashboard now offers over a dozen metrics for ChangeMan ZMF

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/05/new-serena-requirements-manager-solution-orchestrated-alm-updates/feed/2IT Should Forget About Development – Should You?http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/05/it-should-forget-about-development-should-you/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=it-should-forget-about-development-should-you
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/05/it-should-forget-about-development-should-you/#commentsWed, 16 May 2012 16:40:19 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=1376IT should forget about development. That’s the main message we received from a recent Serena survey of 957 IT professionals in multiple industries and countries. Many said that even with all the advances in mobile and cloud technologies, application development was doing relatively well. However, the “bookend” processes of managing requirements and releases were a much bigger problem.

Out of a scale of 1 to 4, with 4 being “Excellent,” here’s how the survey respondents rated the different Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) processes:

Development management: 2.78

Demand management: 2.74

Release management: 2.65

Requirements management: 2.58

The biggest challenges? Deploying on time without issues, clarifying business needs, reusing requirements – these were just some of the top challenges our survey respondents highlighted.

So what should IT organizations do? In a nutshell, they should revisit their deployment process and find the right balance between speed and control in order to ensure they can repeatedly, quickly and confidently deploy their applications. They also need to invest more in requirements processes to help everyone share requirements across a complex technology and organizational landscape.

To get more personalized recommendations and to see how you stack up against your peers, take the IT Benchmark for Application Development. You can download the full research report “IT Trends and Outlooks: Why IT Should Forget About Development” immediately after filling out the 5-minute questionnaire.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/05/it-should-forget-about-development-should-you/feed/0Video Testimonial: Why SunGard Chose Serena for ITSMhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2012/05/video-testimonial-why-sungard-chose-serena-for-itsm/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=video-testimonial-why-sungard-chose-serena-for-itsm
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/05/video-testimonial-why-sungard-chose-serena-for-itsm/#commentsThu, 10 May 2012 18:46:26 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=1366Take a look at this quick 6-minute video of SunGard’s Quinn Lanus talking about why they selected Serena Service Manager over ITSM solutions such as BMC Remedy, ServiceNow and others.

SunGard is a leading software and technology services company with more than 20,000 employees serving 25,000 customers across 70 countries. SunGard Institutional Asset Management is an application service provider (ASP). With global financial institutions relying on their services to be available 24×7, the company needed to streamline processes and phase out its aging IT Service Management (ITSM) solution that was built using Lotus Notes.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/05/video-testimonial-why-sungard-chose-serena-for-itsm/feed/0The 3 C’s to DevOps Successhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2012/05/the-3-cs-to-devops-success/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-3-cs-to-devops-success
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/05/the-3-cs-to-devops-success/#commentsTue, 01 May 2012 20:18:54 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=1358Here comes DevOps! But how and why is DevOps forming; and what is it providing? Of course, DevOps is Application Development (Dev) and IT Operations (Ops) teams working together to deliver the needs of the business.

Why DevOps? With online applications being the business, enterprises cannot afford long delays in application development and application enhancement. Every new feature that can be delivered can generate additional income; and the sooner that feature is delivered, the sooner the income is realized. DevOps addresses the long-standing divide between App Dev and IT Ops and improves the speed that applications are delivered.

How are they working together? Sometimes organizationally they are merging or teams are being created. Recently, at the DevOps Days in Austin, I met development and release engineers who are parts of newly formed DevOps teams. But these DevOps teams are still in the minority when considering how organizations are delivering DevOps. More often than not, DevOps is being realized by improved collaboration by the different Development and Operations teams.

How do these disconnected teams, Dev and Ops, work together, especially after so many years of division? They have different goals and different processes; yet these goals and processes must be combined, connected, or consolidated in order for DevOps to succeed. Regarding goals, Dev is all about creating new apps and features to reduce risks, reduce costs, improve performance, and/or increase revenue. Meanwhile, IT Ops’ role is to move new features and apps into production as expediently, efficiently, and effectively as possible. Traditionally, this meant that App Dev moved quickly and IT Ops moved prudently, often butting heads in the process. Now, they can’t butt heads; they must work together.

Regarding processes, each group has had its own set of processes which haven’t been well connected. The hand off between the groups has thus been negatively affected. And this is one of the most critical challenges that needs to be addressed for DevOps to succeed. Orchestrating Development Management processes with Release Management processes will ensure that critical application release information is not lost and that DevOps can deliver on its goal – to deliver new apps and new features expediently, efficiently, and effectively so that the business can increase revenue and reduce costs.

If you’re looking for a DevOps solution, read the Ovum Rainbow Map for DevOps, a third party analysis of available DevOps vendors. According to the report, Serena Software demonstrates comprehensive coverage for a DevOps solution.

We created Doug Serena, CIO to educate people about the benefits of Orchestrated IT in a fun and fresh way. The results have been gratifying, both anecdotally and quantitatively. We’ve heard from customers, analysts and journalists that it provides insight into the real goings-on of senior IT leadership teams in a way never before seen. And now we see that the videos have been viewed a couple thousand times.

Keep a look out for more Doug Serena, CIO news and tweets!

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/04/doug-serena-cio-hits-the-2k-view-milestone/feed/1Survey Says: Private Sector and Federal Government Have Contrasting App Dev Prioritieshttp://www.serena.com/blog/2012/04/survey-says-private-sector-and-federal-government-have-contrasting-app-dev-priorities/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=survey-says-private-sector-and-federal-government-have-contrasting-app-dev-priorities
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/04/survey-says-private-sector-and-federal-government-have-contrasting-app-dev-priorities/#commentsTue, 24 Apr 2012 17:11:38 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=1334At Serena, we pride ourselves on staying on top of relevant trends and application development issues in all the major markets. Thus we often run targeted surveys to dig deeper into the behavior of a select market. We ran one such survey at our annual Federal User Group meeting held last month in Washington, DC to learn more about the application development priorities and key issues that IT teams from the US Federal Government sector are facing. Serena has a long and successful history of exceptional Federal Government implementations, so the data uncovered in our survey is invaluable.

Respondents of the Federal User Group survey include a mix of IT people working in the Federal sector, including at civilian agencies, defense agencies, system integrators and government contractors. The results were particularly interesting when compared to a similar, private sector-focused study that Serena performed last year at Gartner’s AADI Summit.

For instance, Standardizing Methodologies was the number one application development priority in the Federal survey, but ranked number four with private-sector respondents (there were a total of eight priorities in both studies). In addition, Automating Tasks was more important to the Federal group, reported as the number three priority, but was near the bottom of the responses from the Gartner AADI Summit. At the other end of the spectrum, respondents from the Gartner AADI Summit ranked Agile Development near the top in importance (number two priority), whereas it fell near the bottom in overall importance for Federal respondents. Interestingly enough, the hype of cloud computing was lost on both sides as both Federal respondents and those surveyed at the Gartner AADI Summit had Moving Apps to the Cloud as their least important priority.

While development priorities may differ according to the research, all IT organizations agree on key initiatives including these three in the order below:

Management of application development as a business process;

Central or federated repository for all application development artifacts;

End-to-end traceability from production back to requirements.

So what does this research tell us? While the Federal sector may consider Agile less important among all their different IT priorities (compared to the private sector adopting Agile methods more often), it has in fact adopted more forward-thinking automated development processes than the private sector.

Reducing overall application development costs and delivering applications faster are undoubtedly key priorities to both sectors. How each sector gets applications released into production is what varies.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/04/survey-says-private-sector-and-federal-government-have-contrasting-app-dev-priorities/feed/0We Want You to xChange Your Ideashttp://www.serena.com/blog/2012/04/we-want-you-to-xchange-your-ideas/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=we-want-you-to-xchange-your-ideas
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/04/we-want-you-to-xchange-your-ideas/#commentsThu, 19 Apr 2012 23:16:31 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=1323The heart of xChange 2012, Serena’s Global User Conference, is the breakout sessions. But the soul of xChange is the customer presentations. I am thrilled to announce that, as of today, you can submit your ideas for presentations online through an SBM workflow (of course!).

This year we are looking for topics in the following categories:

Orchestrated Business Engagement & Visibility – your Serena solutions that support how the business interacts with IT

Orchestrated Application Development – for those implementations of Serena solutions you have created that support the software development teams

Orchestrated Application Delivery – how you have used Serena solutions to automate the release and deployment processes

You should aim to present for about 30 minutes with 15 minutes for questions. The audience loves detail and really likes to hear about the challenges and how you overcame them.

When you submit your idea, make your description as interesting as possible. Remember, we want the very best of the very best for the conference. If you are selected to speak, we will give you a free pass to xChange 2012 (worth $1,995). You will be notified whether or not your proposal has been accepted.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/04/we-want-you-to-xchange-your-ideas/feed/0Surprisingly unsurprising response to Orchestrated IThttp://www.serena.com/blog/2012/04/surprisingly-unsurprising-response-to-orchestrated-it/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=surprisingly-unsurprising-response-to-orchestrated-it
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/04/surprisingly-unsurprising-response-to-orchestrated-it/#commentsWed, 11 Apr 2012 14:55:35 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=1300For my first trip to mainland China I was lucky enough to go to Shenzhen. Just a short ferry ride from Hong Kong, Shenzhen is an ultra-modern city with incredible architecture, broad boulevards and super-efficient infrastructure.

I was in China to work with a technology component manufacturer who was looking to overhaul their development processes and toolsets. They need to keep pace with the business which operates in the fastest growing area of technology and faces serious global competition. In the past two decades they have brought in numerous tools to address the individual needs of the developers, testers, business analysts, project managers and so on. And, while these had clearly improved the work delivered by the individual groups in the lifecycle, the client felt there must be something more they could be doing.

Serena’s Value Engineering team set about the analysis and discovered that the client was correct. Productivity and quality was indeed very high from each of the individual groups. But the developers were frustrated by trying to use agile development methods with tools designed for a different time: “we’re trying to go faster but we’re wearing wooden sneakers” one team leader said. The release managers were struggling to coordinate changes across the heterogeneity of the code streams for back office systems and mobile apps, embedded code and web code. The development teams were using individual and siloed instances of many different code repositories. And these code repositories were also decades old and not designed to meet the needs of modern, configuration-based release management.

But most of all, the real issue that was draining resources, was the lack of traceability between the lifecycle stages. The incomplete, inaccurate or inconsistent content that was handed off downstream in the lifecycle was adding many days of rework, duplication and error correction to the whole process. It seems as though everyone had fixed all the problems in their own organization but had not fixed the boundary conditions. Estimates of the wasted effort varied but a picture soon emerged that it could be as much as 20% per person. This figure alone represents tens of millions of dollars (USD) of value in the organization that should be liberated and turned into improved quality, product content and time-to-market. When the other areas of improvement, such as error reduction and the elimination of duplicated effort, are factored in, the potential capacity that can be returned to the organization represents staggering amounts of value.

This client also wants to preserve their existing investment tools that they have purchased, and the ones they have developed themselves. They do not want to sweep away the tools they know and trust with something new and generic.

Serena’s Orchestrated IT approach surprised and delighted them. They realized they would get the connections between the siloes addressed and they’d get to keep their investment in tools with proven heritages and important historical data. But what really impressed them was the ability to derive role specific dashboards in real time that combined data from their existing tools and from their process being automated. The current process is all based on spreadsheets and is entirely manual.

I am looking forward to going back there and seeing their success in a few months after our deployment team has completed their work.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/04/surprisingly-unsurprising-response-to-orchestrated-it/feed/0This week on “Doug Serena, CIO”: The Final Chapterhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2012/04/this-week-on-doug-serena-cio-the-final-chapter/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=this-week-on-doug-serena-cio-the-final-chapter
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/04/this-week-on-doug-serena-cio-the-final-chapter/#commentsMon, 09 Apr 2012 15:00:00 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=1290Episode five, the finale to the popular docudrama Doug Serena, CIO, airs on Monday, April 9th, concluding the case study of an intrepid IT leadership team’s quest to transform their company from endangered to dominating.

Last week, in episode four, the tension between “Team Doug” and “Team Brad” grew to a boiling point as the release date for Millennium quickly approached. We were also introduced to Doug’s “kids”, and the important trip to India he and his wife hoped to take to finally meet them. Not only the future of Doug’s company, Qlarius, but also the chance of meeting his sponsored children hinges on Millennium’s success!

In the final episode, Doug and his team celebrate a successful early release of Millennium. With a simple keyboard click, Doug releases Millennium into production, turning his team into instant Qlarius rock stars and heroes. While Brad is relieved about the application’s success, something new grips him, stress, as it is now the sales team’s turn in the company spotlight to capitalize on the new application by closing some new business in a hurry. In the end, the development and release of Millennium using Serena’s Orchestrated IT System helped Qlarius turn a corner, and also helped some orphan children in India to meet their sponsors from the other side of the world.

Enjoy the show and don’t forget to participate in our daily trivia contest, which runs through April 20th, for a chance to win prizes.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/04/this-week-on-doug-serena-cio-the-final-chapter/feed/0Serena’s ALM Solutions Delight Federal Usershttp://www.serena.com/blog/2012/04/serenas-alm-solutions-delight-federal-users/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=serenas-alm-solutions-delight-federal-users
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/04/serenas-alm-solutions-delight-federal-users/#commentsFri, 06 Apr 2012 15:00:31 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=1286It was with great pleasure I attended a vibrant Federal User Group last week. With so many advances and improvements in the past 12 months, Federal agencies and system integrators showed enthusiastic interest in the evolution of our Orchestrated ALM solutions – Requirements Manager, Development Manager and Release Manager. Within the Federal government, as in many enterprise IT organizations, there is a continued need to drive efficiency and transparency across both Application Development and IT Operations. I noted particular interest in the orchestration of Release Management with Serena Release Manager, and IT Service Management with Serena Service Manager.

Among those responsible for both distributed and mainframe application development and delivery, there was surprise and delight that the upcoming Serena Dashboard will extend out of the box KPI metrics (process and data) across both distributed and mainframe environments; and with the news that ChangeMan ZMF will be encompassed in Serena Development Manager and Serena Release Manager solutions. As today’s increasingly multi-tier applications span platforms and technologies, it is comforting to note that the Serena Dashboard will provide a single pane of glass for insight and visibility across Application Development and IT Operations, enabling timely decisions for faster cycle-times, streamlined collaboration, and elimination of waste.

Serena Service Manager for the IT Products and Services for Service Delivery category;

Serena Release Manager for the Application Delivery category.

Winners will be announced on May 8, 2012 during an awards dinner and presentation in Las Vegas.

Coming on top of the recent Pink Elephant ITIL Innovation of the Year Award, which also recognized these two solutions, this latest accolade burnishes Serena’s IT management credentials, especially in the areas of DevOps and ITSM.

It’s been an award-winning year for Serena so far in 2012. In addition to the above, Serena has also been named to the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal’s Top 25 Software Companies list and was named Champion in the Agile ALM category in Info-Tech Research Group’s most recent Vendor Landscape report.

Wow. And it’s only April.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/04/two-serena-solutions-named-network-products-guide-award-finalists/feed/0Intelligence for IThttp://www.serena.com/blog/2012/04/intelligence-for-all-it/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=intelligence-for-all-it
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/04/intelligence-for-all-it/#commentsMon, 02 Apr 2012 20:49:46 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=1252We’re just a few weeks away from publishing our ALM research survey based on almost 1000 IT professionals. One thing that’s clear: when it comes to understanding what’s going on across IT, IT is often in the dark. Customers tell me the same thing: they have good tools especially in development, but when it comes to gaining insight across all their IT processes, they face massive challenges. Different platforms, expensive “heavyweight” Business Intelligence tools, localized processes. IT doesn’t need more Business Intelligence – IT needs IT Intelligence!

What is “IT Intelligence” exactly? IT Intelligence is insight into all IT processes, tools, infrastructure, mainframe and more. It’s not just reporting on release status or seeing the Service Level Agreement (SLA) for a help desk team. It’s understanding how all IT processes, data and metrics all relate to each other, so IT can be as effective as possible.

IT Intelligence allows everyone from IT executives to team members to external stakeholders to understand what’s going on across all IT. For example:

IT management: can see cycle times for each step needed to deliver what the business needs, as well as potential bottlenecks across all teams and projects

Business users: know the status of all their enhancement requests and have visibility into which release trains they are slated for

Business analysts: have full traceability across all requirements, code, test plans associated with the business demands

IT Intelligence isn’t just BI reinvented. IT needs insight without all the custom programming, long deployments and rigid modeling that plague traditional BI tools. In order for IT to gain better knowledge and understanding, IT Intelligence should be:

Quick to deploy

Work across any IT process, platform and tool

Easy to adapt to changing tools or processes

Highly personalizable for anyone in the IT value chain

I encourage you to see IT Intelligence for yourself. You can try out an interactive demo of our new Orchestrated IT Dashboard.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/04/intelligence-for-all-it/feed/0This week on “Doug Serena, CIO”: Episode Fourhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2012/04/this-week-on-doug-serena-cio-episode-four/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=this-week-on-doug-serena-cio-episode-four
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/04/this-week-on-doug-serena-cio-episode-four/#commentsMon, 02 Apr 2012 15:00:57 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=1240Episode four of the popular docudrama Doug Serena, CIO airs on Monday, April 2nd, continuing the case study of an intrepid IT leadership team’s quest to transform their company from endangered to dominating.

In episode three, the point was driven home that the fate of not only Doug’s team, but also the entire company hinges on the success of the release of the Millennium application. This knowledge has Brad even more on edge about Doug’s abilities as CIO, though he does make time to spy in on a working session of Millennium in action. It is in this working session that optimism grows for Doug’s team about the application’s success as they witness the powerful performance metrics of the IT team in action through the Serena Dashboard.

Episode four highlights the growing tension between “Team Doug” versus “Team Brad” as the release deadline for Millennium nears. In fact, Doug sees firsthand Brad’s level of trust, or lack thereof, on the chances of Millennium’s success. We are also introduced to a personal side of Doug as he discusses the orphans living in India that he and his wife proudly sponsor. If all goes well, Doug and his wife will have the opportunity to finally fly to India and meet “their” children in person.

Enjoy the show and don’t forget to participate in our daily trivia contest for a chance to win prizes.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/04/this-week-on-doug-serena-cio-episode-four/feed/0Metrics Matter for ITSM Performancehttp://www.serena.com/blog/2012/03/metrics-matter-for-itsm-performance/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=metrics-matter-for-itsm-performance
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/03/metrics-matter-for-itsm-performance/#commentsWed, 28 Mar 2012 16:21:20 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=1201I recently had the pleasure of attending a series of Malcolm Fry-led seminars on the Power of Metrics, conducted in conjunction with the Help Desk Institute, or HDI for short. Malcolm never fails to both educate and entertain, which is a rare combination in the technology world (even rarer with the passing of Steve Jobs). In this seminar, Malcolm talked about how we are all measured, from the time we are born (how much did we weigh?) until the time we die (how old were we?). The same is even truer in the business world. In the Help Desk and ITSM arena, it’s important to have metrics that make sense to your company. The more you can adapt generic ITIL metrics to tie back to outcomes that make sense to the company – assembly line uptime, number of loans processed, whatever the case may be – the more relevant your IT organization will be to the business.

In fact, we’re even using some of the lessons learned from Malcolm’s seminar to improve our own measurements to heighten an already high focus on our customer outcomes, like successful implementations and customer reference-ability. Because at the end of the day, if our measurements are completely in line with yours, then that heightens everyone’s chances of success.

We launched the Doug Serena, CIO web miniseries a couple of weeks ago and it’s already a big YouTube success. To add to the fun, we decided to kick off a related Twitter contest. This scavenger hunt-style trivia contest offers @DougSerenaCIO Twitter followers a chance to win Starbucks Cards for watching the series and answering simple questions about his show.

The contest kicks off today, Monday, March 26,2012 at 12:01am ET and will end on Friday, April 20, 2012 at 11:59 p.m. ET.

Anyone care to guess where in the world Doug and his wife are hoping to travel on the trip mentioned in episode three? There is a hint in the episode of a certain mountain that might be close to their destination. Figure it out and you could win the prize.

Each business day, our favorite CIO will pose a question like this via Twitter about a past episode of Doug Serena, CIO. Anyone who follows @DougSerenaCIO and watches the miniseries can easily find the answer and submit for a chance to win a $20 Starbucks Card.

Questions can come at anytime of the day, so make sure you are keeping an eye on @DougSerenaCIO via Twitter. When you know the answer to one of the Doug Serena, CIO trivia questions, just tweet it to Doug!

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/03/get-20-of-coffee-on-doug-serena-cio/feed/0This week on “Doug Serena, CIO”: Episode Threehttp://www.serena.com/blog/2012/03/this-week-on-doug-serena-cio-episode-three/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=this-week-on-doug-serena-cio-episode-three
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/03/this-week-on-doug-serena-cio-episode-three/#commentsFri, 23 Mar 2012 15:00:59 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=1194Episode three of the popular docudrama Doug Serena, CIO airs on Monday, March 26th, continuing the case study of an intrepid IT leadership team’s quest to transform their company from endangered to dominating.

In episode two, we learned how a potential hurdle was crossed when Doug’s earlier decision to Orchestrate IT helped solve what could have been a project-killing operational issue. In addition, we saw how Serena Service Manager helped Qlarius save $600K. We also got some color on Doug’s nemesis, Brad, the ever so skeptical SVP of Sales.

Episode three is dominated by a strategy session where Doug’s team witnesses first-hand the process visualization benefits of deep dashboard metrics. The team’s ability to deliver the Millennium project hangs in the balance. Monday’s episode also provides insight into why Michelle is the “Tigris” of Doug’s team, and why the timing of Jason’s latest family edition could have been better. You’ll also see Brad’s continued “enthusiastic support” of the project.

Anyone care to guess where in the world Doug and his wife are hoping to travel on the trip mentioned in episode three? There is a hint in the episode of a certain mountain that might be close to their destination. Figure it out and you could win a $20 Starbucks Card in the upcoming Doug Serena, CIO trivia contest that will soon kick off on Twitter. Starbucks Cards will be awarded daily and at random to someone who answered the trivia question correct that day in this scavenger hunt-style contest. Stay tuned to @DougSerenaCIO for details!

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/03/this-week-on-doug-serena-cio-episode-three/feed/0Serena Named “Champion” of Agile ALM by Info-Tech Researchhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2012/03/serena-named-champion-of-agile-alm-by-info-tech-research/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=serena-named-champion-of-agile-alm-by-info-tech-research
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/03/serena-named-champion-of-agile-alm-by-info-tech-research/#commentsWed, 21 Mar 2012 16:11:14 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=1164I am happy to report that Serena was named Champion in the category of Agile ALM by leading research firm, Info-Tech in its most recent Vendor Landscape Report. This accomplishment dovetails nicely with our recent Pink Elephant ITIL Innovation of the Year Award (Please see our blog, Pink Reflections for more on this) because we’ve now been recognized in the past two weeks for both our ITSM and our agile development technologies. Serena’s Orchestrated IT vision is all about automating, controlling and instrumenting the most important application development and operations processes to deliver true DevOps.

The Info-Tech Research Group Vendor Landscape reports recognize outstanding vendors, assessing them by the strength of their offering and their strategy for the enterprise. The report pays tribute to the contribution of exceptional vendors in a particular category, in this case Agile ALM. Serena has a proven history of success delivering innovation in the field of agile-based application delivery and lifecycle management for more than a quarter century, so it is quite an honor to be recognized.

Using Serena’s orchestrated agile development, IT organizations can coordinate disparate processes, multiple tools and globally distributed teams from initial business request all the way to final production release. Serena orchestrates agility by helping IT engage more rapidly and accurately with the business, accelerate globally distributed water-scrum-fall development, and deliver more frequently to production – all while maintaining enterprise visibility and compliance to corporate and regulatory standards.

Info-Tech highlighted Serena as the only vendor included in the report to earn “Feature Fully Present” across all 11 evaluated features. They characterize Serena as “a complete package controlled by a complete business process engine.” This underscores our commitment to offering our customers a complete tool set of features and functionality, powered by a flexible process-driven platform. And even if a customer chooses not to 100 percent “rip-and-replace,” their ALM suite with ours, Serena’s ALM products integrate with other products. This is truly unique to the development industry.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/03/serena-named-champion-of-agile-alm-by-info-tech-research/feed/0This week on “Doug Serena CIO”: Episode Twohttp://www.serena.com/blog/2012/03/this-week-on-doug-serena-cio-episode-two/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=this-week-on-doug-serena-cio-episode-two
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/03/this-week-on-doug-serena-cio-episode-two/#commentsMon, 19 Mar 2012 16:28:58 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=1177On Monday, March 19th, episode two of the docudrama Doug Serena, CIO airs, continuing the story of CIO extraordinaire Doug Serena and his team’s efforts to save the insurance brokerage firm Qlarius from going under. Doug Serena, CIO is a hero’s journey through major business challenges, setbacks and personal frustrations to the promised land of boardroom-level business success.

The miniseries includes five 5-minute webisodes, viewable here at Serena.com/DougSerenaCIO or on our YouTube channel. While it features Serena’s Orchestrated IT solutions, it’s designed to be entertaining and of interest to non-Serena technology shops as well.

In last week’s premier episode we were introduced to the crisis engulfing Qlarius and the idea on how IT can save the day through the development and delivery of a sales application, Millennium. We are also introduced to the main players, including Doug’s stellar team and the ever so skeptical SVP of Sales, “Brad”.

Tune in on Monday to see how a potential hurdle is crossed when Doug’s earlier decision to Orchestrate IT helps solve what could have been a project-killing operational issue. Also see how the use of the award-winning Serena Service Manager system helps save the company $600K and tons of time through its innovative visual composition capability.

Brad and Doug’s team weigh in on working with Doug, and past Qlarius CIO’s, which includes a white board diagram you have to see to believe.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/03/this-week-on-doug-serena-cio-episode-two/feed/0Orchestrated IT Launcheshttp://www.serena.com/blog/2012/03/orchestrated-it-launches/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=orchestrated-it-launches
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/03/orchestrated-it-launches/#commentsMon, 12 Mar 2012 20:58:03 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=1129We are formally launching our vision of Orchestrated IT to the world. This marks a milestone for Serena, as it establishes us as an IT management provider of considerable scope and not just as an ALM provider. Not that we’ve forsaken ALM. Just the opposite: Orchestrated IT includes and sprang from Orchestrated ALM.

While Orchestrated IT may be revolutionary, it has come about through evolutionary means, having evolved from our early work orchestrating application delivery and more recent work orchestrating IT service management.

Watch the new Doug Serena, CIO miniseries that just premiered to see the transformative power of Orchestrated IT. In five short videos, this savvy CIO and his intrepid team show how they developed, delivered and serviced a breakthrough app that allowed their company to turn the tables on an arch competitor.

We hope that Doug Serena, CIO will spark lots of conversation in the industry about how IT leaders can rise up to help lead their companies to huge commercial success.

We’re also taking Orchestrated IT on the road, with a world tour that will touch down in nearly 30 cities over the coming months. Is one of them near you? Please join us if it is.

Finally, we believe that enterprise IT matters more than ever in our online, personalized, mobile economy. We believe that every industry can benefit from Orchestrated IT. We believe that it is insane to rip out tools that are working, especially when you can orchestrate them into a new and better whole. And we believe that giving IT stakeholders an easy way to engage in critical IT processes is the path to huge success for IT and IT leaders.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/03/orchestrated-it-launches/feed/0Introducing “Doug Serena, CIO”http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/03/introducing-doug-serena-cio/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=introducing-doug-serena-cio
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/03/introducing-doug-serena-cio/#commentsMon, 12 Mar 2012 14:48:25 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=1124What does a CIO experience in the boardroom? How does an IT senior leadership team rally to address a major business challenge? How do IT management systems support IT success? Finally, what pressures do hard-edged executives bring to bear on the CIO?

We created the new web miniseries “Doug Serena, CIO” to answer these questions and to show the benefit of orchestrating IT. It’s a hero’s journey through major business challenges, setbacks and personal frustrations to the Promised Land of boardroom-level business success.

It was fun to bring this idealized story to life and we think it will be fun to watch. But the goal is to be informative about how IT leadership teams can use Orchestrated IT systems to help them take their rightful place as boardroom players and heroes.

The miniseries includes five 5-minute webisodes, viewable here at Serena.com/DougSerenaCIO or on our YouTube channel. While it features Serena’s Orchestrated IT solutions, it’s designed to be of interest to non-Serena shops as well.

The premiere episode is viewable now. It sets the stage by dramatizing a crisis engulfing the business and the need for IT to come to the rescue. I hope you find it an interesting and worthwhile way to spend 5 minutes.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/03/introducing-doug-serena-cio/feed/0The xChange 2012 Serena Charity Challengehttp://www.serena.com/blog/2012/03/the-xchange-2012-serena-charity-challenge/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-xchange-2012-serena-charity-challenge
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/03/the-xchange-2012-serena-charity-challenge/#commentsWed, 07 Mar 2012 15:17:54 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=1111If you were at xChange 2011 you know how stunningly successful it was. So much so that the attendee appraisal forms were in the mid- to high-90th percentile in every category, for every breakout session, for every general session and for all of the events.

In recognition of this achievement, Serena President and CEO John Nugent awarded the 108-strong Serena xChange team the Gold Award for customer excellence, which comes with a monetary prize. The team decided that this money should be used to create a legacy that would bring some value outside Serena. Much discussion spawned the idea for the Serena Charity Challenge.

At xChange 2012, customers, partners and Serena employees will be invited, individually or in small teams, to compete to develop a workflow application for a selected charity. The SCC will take place on Sunday, September 9 and the winner will be announced the same day. The winning process app will be donated to the selected charity, along with the computers, communications and software licenses necessary for the charity to operate it. We are in the process of choosing the charity and welcome your suggestions.

To contend in the Serena Charity Challenge please contact me or the SCC project leader Siddhartha Goel. We look forward to a great competition that will benefit a fantastic cause!

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/03/the-xchange-2012-serena-charity-challenge/feed/2Serena wins ITIL Innovation of the Year Awardhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2012/02/pinkreflections/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=pinkreflections
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/02/pinkreflections/#commentsThu, 23 Feb 2012 01:05:00 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=1053Yesterday was a big day for Serena. We won the Pink Elephant Innovation Award for our Serena Service Manager and Serena Release Manager integrated solutions. We also had significant conversations with hundreds of attendees at the Pink12 conference where the award was given out.

This leads to several observations:

ITSM is undergoing a generational revolution. First gen systems from Remedy, Peregrine (now HP), CA and others are at the bitter end of their duty cycles. Customers in this most mature of IT management markets are actively looking for something new.

First gen cloud-based ITSM systems aren’t cutting the mustard. I spoke with more than a few SaaS ITSM pioneers who are stymied by inflexibility, lack of upgradability and poor response time. Wow. Weren’t those problems supposed to be left behind with the ERP-like systems of the past?

ITSM and Release Management go together like sugar and spice. The Innovation Award judges were clearly taken with the novelty of how Serena Service Manager and Serena Release Manager both bridged the DevOps divide and provided a new level of service responsiveness.

Serena was so right to accept our customers’ invitation to provide an ITSM solution. Many had made great progress with their ITIL initiatives using Serena Business Manager alone, but figured that an off-the-shelf, Pink-certified solution from Serena that incorporated a highly effective CMDB would help them go to the next level. Thank you for pushing!

Pink Elephant runs a great conference. Educated, passionate attendees streamed to our booth, each one bubbling about what they were getting out of the sessions they’d attended. We vendors also felt appreciated. Thank you David and George.

Want to see the 1 minute video we submitted along with the Serena highlight of the award ceremony? Click here.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/02/pinkreflections/feed/2Requirements is a Top Issue for IThttp://www.serena.com/blog/2012/02/requirements-is-a-top-issue-for-it/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=requirements-is-a-top-issue-for-it
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/02/requirements-is-a-top-issue-for-it/#commentsWed, 15 Feb 2012 19:30:42 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=1045My colleagues and I recently received almost 1,000 responses for a benchmark study on Application Lifecycle Management practices that we’re conducting. We’re now analyzing the data, but one thing is clear – one of IT’s top issues is requirements. In fact, our preliminary numbers show that almost half of all survey respondents reinvent the wheel when it comes to defining business requirements!

The good news is that people are getting better. In fact, the International Institute of Business Analysts (IIBA) is just one example of an organization promoting best practices for requirements management. And on February 16, Serena will be participating in an IIBA webcast on requirements traceability. This should be a very enlightening webcast, as requirements experts will be sharing their experiences from the field. Serena will share how our customers have been experiencing increased satisfaction by looking at the entire requirements process and managing traceability from initial request all the way to release. I encourage you to register for the webcast on the IIBA website.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/02/requirements-is-a-top-issue-for-it/feed/0Serena xChange 2012: Registration and Call for Speakers Open!http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/02/serena-xchange-2012-registration-and-call-for-speakers-open/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=serena-xchange-2012-registration-and-call-for-speakers-open
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/02/serena-xchange-2012-registration-and-call-for-speakers-open/#commentsMon, 13 Feb 2012 18:51:47 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=1034If you were at xChange 2011 you know what an incredible event it was. I can promise you that xChange 2012 at the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Resort in Las Vegas, NV will be even better.

Registration is now open and we have held the 2007 price for another year! Register by June 1st and save $400! Get even more savings when you take your whole team.

It’s about the community exchanging ideas.

This year, more than ever before, xChange will be about you. With more customer speakers, more sessions devoted to real world application of Serena solutions and more opportunities to interact with your peers, xChange 2012 will honor its name.

We are currently looking for customer speakers. If you have used a Serena solution to solve a real world problem and you want to share that with the xChange community please write to me and let me know what you’d like to talk about.

We will focus on the practical application of the product sets and will group the sessions according to the Orchestrated IT approach we introduced at xChange 2011. The tracks will be:

Orchestrated Apps: the application development process

Front office: Serena’s new solution for demand management

Application delivery: what’s new with requirements management and configuration management

Development management: the visibility necessary to run a development organization

Release management: the latest in release control and release automation

Orchestrated Ops: service management processes

IT service management: how ITIL and other best practices are implemented

Lifecycle dashboards: tracking and controlling the whole of Orchestrated IT from a single user interface

I look forward to hearing from and seeing you all again. Mark your calendar now for September 10th – 12th at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, NV. Register today.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/02/serena-xchange-2012-registration-and-call-for-speakers-open/feed/06 Steps to Competitive Dominance where the IT Rubber Meets the Roadhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2012/02/6-steps-to-competitive-dominance-where-the-it-rubber-meets-the-road/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=6-steps-to-competitive-dominance-where-the-it-rubber-meets-the-road
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/02/6-steps-to-competitive-dominance-where-the-it-rubber-meets-the-road/#commentsWed, 01 Feb 2012 17:05:08 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=1009My latest whitepaper has just been published. The topic is orchestrated IT operations. It speaks to how IT ops are evolving in ways both obvious and surprising, and then goes on to suggest six responses that must be mastered.

The six steps are to synchronize people with processes, to systematize demand management, to automate repetitive tasks, to integrate people with system processes, to rally around an ops calendar, and to orchestrate service management.

Together these steps make ops processes automated, transparent, configurable and connected. In a word, ops will become orchestrated. Orchestration creates dramatic improvements in cycle time, compliance, agility and accountability.

The good news is that the responses suggested in the paper can and should be implemented step-wise, and they will leverage the tooling infrastructure already in place.

The result will be significant incremental gains, consistently achieved. Such gains soon add up to a crushing competitive advantage.

That’s the benefit of Orchestrated Ops.

I hope the paper is helpful to IT Ops leaders whether or not they are Serena customers. Let me know if it is helpful to you.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/02/6-steps-to-competitive-dominance-where-the-it-rubber-meets-the-road/feed/2Time to chuck your ERP-like Service Management System?http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/01/time-to-chuck-your-erp-like-service-management-system/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=time-to-chuck-your-erp-like-service-management-system
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/01/time-to-chuck-your-erp-like-service-management-system/#commentsMon, 30 Jan 2012 18:59:28 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=994More and more IT Ops execs are expressing their dissatisfaction with their on-premise “ERP-like” service management software. The gripe is that these systems are complex, costly and very difficult to extend and customize. One IT exec I spoke with called their ERP-like service management solution their “cul-de-sac” system…a dead end. IT execs understand having to pay ERP-like prices to manage global-system-of-record processes (I didn’t say they liked it). But last I checked, service management systems manage lightweight, business and internal IT services. So the question is why spend $5M+ for an on-premise ERP-like service management system to solve a $500K problem?

The traditional on-premise ERP service management vendors, like their ERP cousins, subscribe to the tenets of the ERP economic model: high license and maintenance fees, implementation fees 2x-3x license fees, long and costly upgrades, hard to use and extremely rigid. These on-premise ERP-like service management systems live by the ERP maxim, “once up and running…don’t touch”!

So why do companies looking for an on-premise service management solution accept the ERP cost model? Well for one reason, they don’t have much choice in the matter. It’s either the classic on-premise ERP approach or the cloud…nothing in between. While many companies have chucked their costly on-premise ERP service management system and moved to the cloud, still many others are looking for an affordable on-premise alternative. A second reason is that companies have been buying enterprise software for 30 years and seemingly just accept high prices and complexity as part of the package. So what to do?

Serena, a finalist for the Pink Elephant ITSM Innovation Award, provides an affordable on-premise service management solution that is the antithesis of the on-premise ERP approach. Serena’s on-premise service management solution can be bought and implemented in a 10th of the time at a 10th of the cost compared to traditional on-premise ERP-like service management solutions. But how can this be? ERP-like systems were built over a 20 year period by many different development teams, using many different development tools and methodologies. They’ve bolted on so many different technologies that the systems have taken on a Frankensteinian look to them. This is why these systems, like their ERP cousins, are so costly, complex and hard to customize.

With Serena’s affordable on-premise approach, we deliver business/IT service packs, all model developed, no programming, fully integrated with our powerful, agile business process platform. Leveraging our Visio-like service modeling capability, customers can easily customize, add and extend the delivered Serena IT Ops service packs to satisfy their ever-changing requirements.

When compared against 20-year-old, on-premise ERP like solutions, Serena Service Manager customers can be up and running in a matter of a few months vs. a year, upgrade their Serena solution in a week vs. months, and customize the delivered services functionality in a few days vs. several months. This is why we can say that Serena’s service management system can be up and running in a 10th of the time at a 10th of the cost compared to on-premise ERP service management solutions. For those customers who wish to move their business/ IT services to the cloud while still maintaining the ability to customize the delivered services…yup, we have an app for that!

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/01/time-to-chuck-your-erp-like-service-management-system/feed/0Serena Software Recognized by Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal as a Top 20 Silicon Valley Software Companyhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2012/01/serena-software-recognized-by-silicon-valleysan-jose-business-journal-as-a-top-20-silicon-valley-software-company/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=serena-software-recognized-by-silicon-valleysan-jose-business-journal-as-a-top-20-silicon-valley-software-company
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/01/serena-software-recognized-by-silicon-valleysan-jose-business-journal-as-a-top-20-silicon-valley-software-company/#commentsWed, 25 Jan 2012 17:03:03 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=986Underscoring a very successful 2011, I’m proud to announce Serena’s inclusion on the prestigious Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal’s Top 25 Software Companies list. Serena’s $222 million in revenue places us 18th on a list that is topped by Oracle Corp. The rankings are based on revenues for the past four quarters. The full list can be found in the January 20th edition of the weekly newspaper.

Software is at the heart of high tech, while Silicon Valley is the most concentrated and vibrant tech region in the world. Thus Serena’s ranking as a Top 20 Silicon Valley software company speaks to Serena’s position as one of the most important tech companies in the world.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/01/serena-software-recognized-by-silicon-valleysan-jose-business-journal-as-a-top-20-silicon-valley-software-company/feed/0Giving to Charity Feels So Good!http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/01/giving-to-charity-feels-so-good/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=giving-to-charity-feels-so-good
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/01/giving-to-charity-feels-so-good/#commentsTue, 24 Jan 2012 16:00:44 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=971Our successful #PlusIs contest wrapped up last week and now it’s time for the winners to claim their prizes and select which charities they’d like for Serena to donate to.

The Grand Prize winner received an iPad 2 and a $500 donation towards the charity of his choice, while the category winners received $50 gift cards and $250 donations to their favorite charities.

…AND THE CHARITIES ARE:

Grand PrizeTechnology Category:
@Kaizeneer
Charity: “Dads Camp” The Indianapolis Church of Christ
The Dad’s Camp is comprised of local mothers and fathers who donate their time and effort to make a fun, spiritual and affordable church camp for boys.

Runner-up WinnersHoliday Category:
@JadenRuby
Charity: The Ronald McDonald House
The Ronald McDonald House program provides a “home-away-from-home” for families so they can stay close by their hospitalized child at little or no cost. The Houses are built on the simple idea that nothing else should matter when a family is focused on healing their child – not where they can afford to stay, where they will get their next meal or where they will lay their head at night to rest.

General Category:
@jodeepups
Charity: Shana’s Last Chance Dog Rescue
Shana’s Last Chance Dog Rescue is dedicated to saving the lives of innocent animals that are homeless and scheduled to be euthanized.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/01/giving-to-charity-feels-so-good/feed/1And the Winner of the PlusIs Twitter Contest is…http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/01/and-the-winner-of-the-plusis-twitter-contest-is%e2%80%a6/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=and-the-winner-of-the-plusis-twitter-contest-is%25e2%2580%25a6
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/01/and-the-winner-of-the-plusis-twitter-contest-is%e2%80%a6/#commentsFri, 20 Jan 2012 16:00:13 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=957After an entertaining couple of months, we are pleased to announce the winners of Serena Software’s latest Twitter contest. The PlusIs contest generated hundreds of creative “Plusisms” from a variety of submitters. It was a difficult decision to narrow down to the category and Grand Prize winners. However, it was an enjoyable exercise, especially because the Grand Prize winner receives an iPad 2 and a $500 donation towards the charity of his choice, while the category winners receive $50 gift cards and $250 donations to their favorite charities.

Donating $1,000 to charity is always gratifying!

The Twitter-based contest called for contestants to submit Plusisms for three categories: Technology, Holiday and General. Inspired by Serena’s very own Plusism of “People + Process = Business In Sync,” we saw a little bit of everything from the hilarious to the bizarre.

Winners were selected based on creativity, humor and relevance and announced via Twitter on January 20th, 2012. Judges also verified that all submissions adhered to the published contest rules and guidelines.

Thanks to the multitude of entrants and our judging panel for another great contest!

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/01/and-the-winner-of-the-plusis-twitter-contest-is%e2%80%a6/feed/15 Predictions for IT in 2012http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/01/5-predictions-for-it-in-2012/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=5-predictions-for-it-in-2012
http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/01/5-predictions-for-it-in-2012/#commentsThu, 12 Jan 2012 00:45:51 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=939Change is coming to both application development and IT operations. Organizations that recognize and embrace it early will stand to benefit most. Based on Serena’s extensive interactions with leading IT executives and analysts, we are making five predictions for 2012.

Agile grows up.
Agile development will no longer be defined by sprints alone. In 2012, Agile will move from a development practice into an extended business process. This leads forward-looking organizations to adopt more modern release management solutions that alleviate the agile bottleneck that still exists at the point of application.

Release management becomes a CIO priority.
As its importance to the software organization grows, release management will no longer report to the apps or ops teams. Always struggling to “serve two masters” – apps teams prioritize velocity while operations wants stability – release management actually serves the business and therefore will increasingly report directly to the CIO.

IT Service Management (ITSM) gets a facelift.
Innovative new approaches to service management will gain a foothold in the enterprise and challenge ERP-like ITSM providers. Mergers and acquisitions within the market will also add to the dynamic nature of the space this year.

Outsourcing becomes survival of the fittest.
New ways to measure outsourced IT performance shift the balance of power from the outsourcer to the CIO, encouraging competition for outsourced IT (highest performance at the lowest cost). New demand management systems help CIOs identify and predict high performers and outsource accordingly.

New DevOps teams emerge.
Executive leadership will push for more collaboration between application development and IT operations. This transition results in the formalization of DevOps, while also giving these teams a stronger leadership position within the IT organization (in ITIL, known as “Service Transitions” organizations).

These and related trends make an orchestrated approach to IT a new enterprise priority. While most software delivery organizations today have many of the right tools in place, the biggest challenge will be orchestrating these disparate elements toward gaining new efficiencies across all of IT.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2012/01/5-predictions-for-it-in-2012/feed/0Speed: The Number One Application Development Priority of 2012http://www.serena.com/blog/2011/12/speed-the-number-one-application-development-priority-of-2012/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=speed-the-number-one-application-development-priority-of-2012
http://www.serena.com/blog/2011/12/speed-the-number-one-application-development-priority-of-2012/#commentsFri, 30 Dec 2011 12:32:18 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=885I always love the start of a new year. There’s so much promise and excitement to look forward to. I, for one, am very interested in how the application development landscape will change with Agile and DevOps being such big influencers. One thing hasn’t changed though – the #1 application development priority for 2012 is still delivering applications faster to the business.

At the Gartner AADI Summit in December 2011, we surveyed IT executives about their top application development and delivery priorities for the coming year and discovered some notable results. 68% of respondents confirmed that faster delivery of applications is the top priority. Expanding the use of Agile and reducing application development costs were the second and third highest priorities, coming in at 52 percent and 49 percent respectively.

We found that delivering applications faster is also growing in importance, up almost ten percent from the 2010 survey. Interestingly enough, performance has outpaced cost as a priority, according to the survey, as the reduction of application development costs dropped in importance in this year’s survey—replaced as the number two priority with Agile use.

While most software delivery teams today have the right tools, roles, and functions in place, we see the biggest challenge in finding a way for these elements to effectively work together from initial request to release into production, so the entire IT organization can be as efficient and cost effective as possible. By putting effective processes in place, even the largest global enterprises can better orchestrate, measure, predict, and accelerate the overall software delivery process.

See complete results from the survey in the graph below.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2011/12/speed-the-number-one-application-development-priority-of-2012/feed/012 Strategies for Delivering End-to-End Agilityhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2011/12/12-strategies-for-delivering-end-to-end-agility/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=12-strategies-for-delivering-end-to-end-agility
http://www.serena.com/blog/2011/12/12-strategies-for-delivering-end-to-end-agility/#commentsTue, 27 Dec 2011 13:00:49 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=879How do you best implement Agile lifecycle practices to ensure end-to-end agility for IT application and service delivery?

Creative Intellect Consulting (CIC), a prominent UK analyst firm, has written a “creative short” – a short paper filled with expert insights – on what leading IT organizations are doing to be truly agile across the entire enterprise. Learn how you can successfully extend agile from a core development focus to a standard that stakeholders across the entire application delivery lifecycle can embrace.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2011/12/12-strategies-for-delivering-end-to-end-agility/feed/0A Month of Glowing Reviews for Serena Dimensions CM 12.2http://www.serena.com/blog/2011/12/a-month-of-glowing-reviews-for-serena-dimensions-cm-12-2/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=a-month-of-glowing-reviews-for-serena-dimensions-cm-12-2
http://www.serena.com/blog/2011/12/a-month-of-glowing-reviews-for-serena-dimensions-cm-12-2/#commentsMon, 19 Dec 2011 18:27:26 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=871It’s been one month since Serena launched Dimensions CM 12.2, and for IT organizations struggling to balance faster delivery with greater control, CM 12.2 has been an early holiday gift! As I’ve been meeting with customers these last few weeks, I’ve been hearing some very positive feedback from those trying out the latest release.

“The combination of better traceability reports offered by Dimensions CM and new reversible headers features will make the adoption of the CM platform from PVCS much easier.”

“The performance numbers from Dimensions CM 12.2 look very promising. Anything that is done to reduce the amount of time required to deliver changes translates directly into increased developer productivity and satisfaction with CM.”

“The new expanded keywords in Dimensions CM 12.2 are critical for our teams. They provide parity with what our developers were used to in PVCS and allow our developers to be more consistent in the information that is delivered via the variables.”

I’m very proud of all the extensive enhancements that the Serena R&D team has done with CM 12.2. Here are just some of the key highlights:

Parallel development enhancements to drive customer satisfaction

Certified integrations, especially for systems development tools, to increase productivity for manufacturing customers

PVCS-style support to facilitate PVCS → CM migration opportunities

In addition, significant work has been done on CM 12.2 to continue improving product performance, product quality and customer satisfaction. Here are just a few key metrics highlighting Serena’s attention to product quality:

Almost 6x performance improvement in delivering files into a stream against a request

Up to 45% improvement in scanning file work-area to calculate differences

20% more test cases compared to CM 12.1

17.5% customer backlog reduction

20.5% customer regression backlog reduction

For more information on Dimensions CM 12.2, I encourage you to see the full release notes for all the details.

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2011/12/a-month-of-glowing-reviews-for-serena-dimensions-cm-12-2/feed/0New HFS/Java Support in Serena ChangeMan ZMF v7http://www.serena.com/blog/2011/12/new-hfsjava-support-in-serena-changeman-zmf-v7/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=new-hfsjava-support-in-serena-changeman-zmf-v7
http://www.serena.com/blog/2011/12/new-hfsjava-support-in-serena-changeman-zmf-v7/#commentsWed, 14 Dec 2011 18:07:25 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=861During “The Kitchen Sink + Everything About the New HFS/JAVA Support in ChangeMan ZMF” VUG session on December 7, John Skelton did a great job taking us through the implementation of Java support in ZMF as well as support for the USS, HFS and zFS file systems. In this presentation John went into deep technical detail of the ZMF v7 design objectives, the architectural changes, the approach from each client type (ISPF, ZDD, Eclipse), how to build Java components, building JAR files and getting Java applications into ZMF.

For those who attended the VUG, we would like to apologize for a couple of technical issues. While the content that John provided was excellent, there were glitches in the execution due to both technical and human error. We have learned from these mistakes and can assure you that they will not happen again. Please accept our apologies.

As promised, here are the questions that we did not get to, along with the answers:

Q: ­Is there any work being done specifically related to CICS Web services; related to WSDLs and WSBIND files?­

A: ZMF will treat those files like any other in the repository. The Eclipse platform provides built-in editors for working with WSDL files. As the WSBIND files are generated from a CICS utility, the ZMF build process that creates the WSBIND files (DFHWS2LS/DFHLS2WS) can be customized to store the files in ZMF.

Q: ­Can you expand on editors that will be available? I am interested in the Eclipse components in conjunction with Compuware Eclipse plugins and SlickEdit language intelligent editor.­

A: The various editors are part of the Eclipse platform. Different editors may be installed/enabled from a variety of sources and vendors. Serena has already assisted customers in running the ZMF4ECL plugin in the Compuware Workbench environment. I would anticipate integrations with SlickEdit to work as well.

A: We don’t have one at this time. This sounds like an excellent enhancement request.

Q: ­Is there a facility to copy HFS files to multiple LPARs in a single system when installing a package in ZMF v7?­

A: This may be accomplished by customizing the ZMF install SKELS at your site. There are a number of ways to accomplish this depending on your environment/setup.

Q: ­Is DB2 Connect supported with ZMF v7?­

A: Not at this time. In the past, ChangeMan ZMF worked with DB2 Connect via a REXX interface into DSNTPSMP that IBM has since stopped supporting. The equivalent to DSNTPSMP procedures supplied by IBM are modules without exit or integration points, so there is currently no way to access this from ZMF. A solution to this is currently being researched by the ZMF development team (ENH184950).

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2011/12/new-hfsjava-support-in-serena-changeman-zmf-v7/feed/0Serena Software Twitter Contest Update — Six Weeks Left, Give Us Your Best #PlusIs and Win a Tablet and Donation to the Charity of Your Choicehttp://www.serena.com/blog/2011/12/serena-software-twitter-contest-update-six-weeks-left-give-us-your-best-plusis-and-win-an-ipad-and-donation-to-the-charity-of-your-choice/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=serena-software-twitter-contest-update-six-weeks-left-give-us-your-best-plusis-and-win-an-ipad-and-donation-to-the-charity-of-your-choice
http://www.serena.com/blog/2011/12/serena-software-twitter-contest-update-six-weeks-left-give-us-your-best-plusis-and-win-an-ipad-and-donation-to-the-charity-of-your-choice/#commentsMon, 12 Dec 2011 17:52:59 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=829We’re officially one-third of the way into our #PlusIs contest and are very impressed with our participants’ creative submissions! Hoping to encourage even more “PlusIsms,” we wanted to share some of the top submissions so far and to remind everyone of the great prizes.

The #PlusIs contest is a chance to use Twitter + your imagination to get creative, have fun and win great prizes, such as a leading tablet computer or a donation of $250 to the charity of your choice. Three category winners will receive $50 gift cards and the $250 charitable donations, and one Grand Prize winner earns a leading tablet computer.

The contest will officially conclude on January 19, 2012 at 11:59 p.m. ET, so get your submissions in now for your chance to win. To be a part of this contest, write and submit a PlusIs about your favorite combination in the Information Technology, General or Tis the Season categories. All entries must be submitted via Twitter to @Serena_Software, and include the hash tag #PlusIs.

A panel of judges will select winners based on creativity, humor, relevance and frequency of submissions. The winner will be announced via Twitter on January 20, 2012.

For official rules and prize information, please visit: www.serena.com/PlusIs

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2011/12/serena-software-twitter-contest-update-six-weeks-left-give-us-your-best-plusis-and-win-an-ipad-and-donation-to-the-charity-of-your-choice/feed/0How Automation, ITIL and the Cloud Affect the DevOps Dividehttp://www.serena.com/blog/2011/12/how-automation-itil-and-the-cloud-affect-the-devops-divide/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=how-automation-itil-and-the-cloud-affect-the-devops-divide
http://www.serena.com/blog/2011/12/how-automation-itil-and-the-cloud-affect-the-devops-divide/#commentsWed, 07 Dec 2011 16:26:43 +0000http://www.serena.com/blog/?p=822I recently sat down with Enterprise Systems and discussed the great debate: Can developers and admins co-exist and improve the enterprise? Can the gulf between development and operations be bridged?

The questions came from all angles, probably ones that you’ve even asked like:

What exactly does it mean for DevOps convergence to take place?

Cloud and virtualization have muddied the DevOps waters even more. Can you explain where these two environments fit in?

Where does automation technology fit into DevOps?

Does adoption of ITIL v3 within the enterprise impact DevOps and co-existence?

]]>http://www.serena.com/blog/2011/12/how-automation-itil-and-the-cloud-affect-the-devops-divide/feed/0Take the ALM Benchmark Survey and Win an iPadhttp://www.serena.com/blog/2011/11/take-the-alm-benchmark-survey-and-win-an-ipad/?utm_sourc